O 


H5iograpl)i£0  of  lUa&ing 

Edited  by  W.  P.  TRENT 


LEADING     AMERICAN 
NOVELISTS 


BY 

JOHN  ERSKINE,   Ph.D. 

Adjunct  Professor  of  English  in  Columbia  University 
Author  of  "  The  Elizabethan  Lyric  " 


WITH    SIX   PORTRAITS 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND   COMPANY 

1910 


Copyright,  1910 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Published  March,  IQIO 


PS  3-7  7 


TO 

MY  FORMER  COLLEAGUES 
THE  FACULTY  OF  AMHERST  COLLEGE 


PREFACE 

IT  is  always  a  daring  thing  to  name  the  leaders  among 
men  of  genius.  No  matter  how  wisely  the  choice  is  made, 
there  will  be  advocates  of  the  rejected  and  assailants  of  the 
elect.  The  present  choice  of  the  leading  American  novelists 
is  offered  with  a  proper  sense  of  critical  frailty,  but  in  the 
belief  that  time  has  already  sifted  out  these  names  for  special 
remembrance.  The  death  of  F.  Marion  Crawford,  for 
example,  is  so  recent  that  it  has  not  seemed  wise  here  to 
attempt  either  a  biographical  or  a  critical  account  of  his 
work. 

In  the  critical  portions  of  each  biography  I  have  at- 
temped  to  make  the  novels  more  intelligible  to  the  general 
reader,  who,  I  take  for  granted,  will  have  made  himself 
familiar  with  the  particular  book  under  discussion.  In  so 
far  as  each  biography  pronounces  any  final  judgment  on 
the  writer,  I  have  tried  to  render  the  opinion  of  the  best 
critics  of  to-day,  rather  than  my  own  impression. 

For  biographical  matter  I  have  availed  myself  of  the 
standard  sources — William  Dunlap's  life  of  Brockden 
Brown,  and  Prescott's  essay,  founded  on  Dunlap;  Professor 
Thomas  R.  Lounsbury's  life  of  Cooper  in  the  American 
Men  of  Letters  Series,  and  the  original  prefaces  to  Cooper's 
novels ;  the  life  of  Simms,  in  the  American  Men  of  Letters 
Series,  by  Professor  W.  P.  Trent;  Professor  G.  E.  Wood- 
berry's  life  of  Hawthorne  in  the  same  series,  and  Mr. 
Henry  James's  life  of  Hawthorne  in  the  English  Men  of 
Letters  Series ;  N.  Hawthorne;  Sa  Vie  et  Son  CEuvre,  par 
L.  Dhaleine;  Mr.  Julian  Hawthorne's  Nathaniel  Haw- 


vu 


viii  PREFACE 

thorne  and  his  Wife  ;  the  Study  of  Hawthorne  by  George 
Parsons  Lathrop,  and  Mrs.  Rose  Hawthorne  Lathrop's 
Memories  cf  Hawthorne ;  Horatio  Bridge's  Personal  Recol 
lections  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  the  introductions  to  the 
various  volumes  of  the  Old  Manse  Edition  of  Hawthorne, 
and  J.  T.  Fields's  Yesterdays  with  Authors, — also  Lind 
say  Swift's  Book  Farm,  its  Members,  Scholars,  and  Visitors, 
and  the  account  of  the  Hawthorne  Centenary  Celebration 
at  the  Wayside;  the  life  of  Mrs.  Stowe  by  her  son,  the 
Rev.  Charles  Edward  Stowe ;  the  life  of  Bret  Harte 
by  T.  Edgar  Pemberton,  and  the  introductions  to  the 
various  volumes  of  the  Standard  Library  Edition  of 
Bret  Harte's  works.  The  biography  which  Henry  C. 
Merwin  is  preparing  for  the  American  Men  of  Letters 
Series  will  doubtless  add  much  to  our  knowledge  of  Bret 
Harte  ;  I  wish  I  might  have  availed  myself  of  it.  I 
am  indebted  to  other  books  and  to  magazine  articles 
innumerable,  but  I  must  name  two  very  different  but 
equally  helpful  works — Mr.  W.  C.  Brownell's  American 
Prose  Masters,  and  Miss  Lillie  D.  Loshe's  Early  American 
Novel,  which  contains  further  bibliographical  material. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  record  here  my  debt  to  my  brother, 
for  assistance  in  preparing  this  book  for  the  press.  During 
the  writing  of  it  I  had  a  thousand  occasions  to  thank  the 
librarians  of  Amherst  College  for  unfailing  cooperation. 
And  most  of  all  I  have  reason  to  be  grateful  to  my  teacher, 
and  friend,  and  colleague,  Professor  W.  P.  Trent. 

J.E. 

Columbia  University 
February  I,  1910 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN 3 

JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 51 

WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS 131 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 179 

HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE 275 

BRET  HARTE 325 


PORTRAITS 


FACING  PAGB 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE,  frontispiece Title 

CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN 3 

JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 51 

WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS 131 

.  ' .       ,,       .     v    ,,         ....      ;,    ,     t< 

HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE 275 

BRET  HARTE 32S 


LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN 


THE  American  novel  is  usually  supposed  to  begin  with 
Charles  Brockden  Brown.  His  individual  though  imma 
ture  genius  connects  the  new  literature  with  the  fashions  of 
thought  current  in  his  time  abroad,  and  his  obvious  inheri 
tance  from  Godwin,  the  writers  in  the  Gothic  style,  and  the 
revolutionary  thinkers,  accredits  him  with  some  importance 
he  might  not  otherwise  have.  But  in  his  own  right  he  laid 
hold  on  fame  through  the  dignity  of  his  social  and  artistic 
ideals;  he  has  in  spite  of  his  priggishness  and  pedantry  an 
air  of  largeness ;  his  complete  devotion  to  all  causes  of  hu 
manity  and  his  interest  in  the  mystery  of  the  human  spirit 
fit  him  to  introduce  the  novel  of  our  democracy,  in  which 
Cooper  and  Hawthorne  and  Mrs.  Stowe  have  dignified  with 
their  art  man's  great  experiment  in  self-knowledge  and  lib 
erty. 

Brockden  Brown  has  one  other  title  to  consideration  in 
the  influence  upon  Hawthorne  that  has  been  claimed  for  him. 
He  was  essentially  a  psychologist  interested  in  moral  prob 
lems,  and  the  total  impression  of  his  searchings  into  the 
mystery  of  evil  is  not  unlike  the  impression  Hawthorne 
makes.  But  the  relation  between  them  will  perhaps  always 
seem  to  the  lay  mind  hard  to  establish;  for  not  only  do  they 
differ  widely  in  the  technical  equipment  of  their  art  and  in 
their  acquaintance  with  life,  but  they  also  have  little  kinship 
in  their  imaginative  power.  Hawthorne  is  among  other  things 
a  poet ;  Brockden  Brown  belongs  as  much  as  he  can  to  the 

3 


LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

eighteenth  century,  the  age  of  reason,  and  his  dependence  is 
upon  reason  rather  than  upon  imagination.  Such  a  gen 
eralization  may  be  difficult  to  prove,  but  the  element  of 
truth  in  it  can  be  felt  in  reading  almost  any  of  his  novels. 
Hawthorne  reminds  us  of  that  temper  of  the  eighteenth 
century  we  know  in  Addison  and  Irving;  Brockden  Brown 
even  at  his  best  is  related  to  Benjamin  Franklin. 

Brown's  psychological,  moral  interests  are  supplemented 
in  his  books  by  unusual  realism;  he  can  give  the  last  touch 
of  life  to  the  record  of  his  actual  observations  or  experiences, 
as  in  his  account  of  the  plague  in  Arthur  Mervyn.  This 
faculty  also  is  of  a  kind  with  Franklin's  clear-headed  memory 
of  what  he  had  seen;  it  has  nothing  in  common  with  the 
imaginative  portrayal  of  scenes  that  never  occurred;  it  is  far 
from  the  realism  of  either  Hawthorne  or  Defoe.  And  in  his 
moral  investigations  Brockden  Brown  often  illustrates  the 
disadvantages  of  detached  reason  as  compared  with  imagina 
tion  in  dealing  with  life;  for  him  morality  is  standardized, 
and  all  departures  from  the  normal  have  a  kind  of  pathologi 
cal  interest.  For  this  reason  what  he  observed  had  a  ten 
dency  to  fall  into  preconceived  relations;  his  reasoning  some 
times  prevented  him  from  seeing  true.  The  truest  thing -in 
the  Scarlet  Letter,  the  faith  of  Hester  and  Dimmesdale  that 
their  love  was  holy,  would  no  more  have  appeared  true  to 
Brockden  Brown  than  it  would  to  Dr.  Johnson.  We  can  hear 
him  pronounce,  "But,  Sir,  they  knew  it  was  sin, — and  that's 
an  end  of  it!"  Though  he  was  the  pupil  of  Godwin  and 
wrote  in  the  age  of  Shelley,  Brockden  Brown  had  the  moral 
conservatism  of  the  new  world. 

A  very  slight  glance  at  his  work  is  enough  to  show  that 
he  is  hardly  typical  of  American  literature.  He  would  be 
a  solitary  figure  in  it,  if  he  were  not  so  largely  a  forgotten 
one.  He  is  known  chiefly  to  scholars.  But  no  account  of 
the  American  novel  can  neglect  him,  and  even  a  passing 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN  5 

glance  at  the  development  of  American  thought,  if  it  missed 
him,  would  miss  much. 

II 

Brockden  Brown  has  derived  more  than  his  portion  of 
oblivion  from  his  authoritative  biographer,  Dunlap,  who 
passed  lightly  over  the  human  side  of  his  subject,  if  he  was 
acquainted  with  it,  and  laid  stress  upon  Brown's  moral  and 
intellectual  virtues,  until  the  author  is  invested  with  that 
special  kind  of  priggishness  that  the  world  is  most  willing 
to  let  die.  "His  parents,"  says  Dunlap,  "were  virtuous, 
religious  people,  and  as  such  held  a  respectable  rank  in 
society;  and  he  could  trace  back  a  long  line  of  ancestry  hold 
ing  the  same  honorable  station."  More  specific  is  the  record 
that  Charles  Brockden  Brown,  of  Quaker  descent,  was  born 
in  Philadelphia,  January  17,  1771. 

The  name  of  Brown  is  no  longer  distinctive,  as  Dunlap 
wisely  remarks,  and  he  gives  us  no  further  comment  on  the 
author's  immediate  parentage.  The  name  of  Brockden  was 
derived  from  an  ancestor  who,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II, 
had  what  is  presumably  the  only  adventure  the  family  line 
could  boast;  he  overheard  a  plot  against  the  King,  and  was 
discovered  by  the  conspirators,  but  escaped  by  pretending  to 
have  been  asleep.  His  danger  was  so  great,  however,  that  he 
came  to  America  and  settled  in  the  province  of  Philadelphia. 

Somewhat  like  Hawthorne,  Brockden  Brown  was  trained 
for  his  life-work  by  circumstances — almost  accidental — of 
childhood.  His  home  seems  to  have  been  full  of  a  kind  of 
silent  culture;  there  were  books  and  maps,  and  encourage 
ment  to  use  both,  but  apparently  there  was  little  society  of 
the  sort  a  boy  needs.  Brown  was  a  delicate  child,  and  his 
physical  inactivity  combined  naturally  with  the  atmosphere 
of  his  home  to  make  him  what  his  parents  thought,  perhaps 
justly,  an  infant  prodigy.  In  his  earliest  childhood,  when 


6  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

they  wished  to  leave  him  at  home,  they  would  put  him  in  the 
charge,  not  of  his  nurse,  but  of  a  book,  knowing  that  he  would 
still  be  reading  when  they  returned.  Later,  when  he  came 
home  from  school,  he  would  be  found  in  the  parlor,  "where, 
having  slipped  off  his  shoes,  he  was  mounted  on  a  table  and 
deeply  engaged  in  the  consultation  of  a  map  suspended  on 
the  side  of  the  wall."  This  curiosity  as  to  the  boundaries 
of  nations  was  displayed  chiefly  at  dinner-time.  His  proud 
parents  encouraged  the  nervous  child  in  abnormal  study; 
his  father  would  ask  him  to  point  out  on  the  map  places  in 
all  parts  of  the  world,  which  the  boy  would  do  with  ease, 
usually  giving  his  father  some  account  of  the  city  or  country. 
In  expression  he  was  no  less  precocious.  When  he  was  ten 
years  old  a  visitor  called  him  "boy."  After  the  visitor's  de 
parture  the  offended  child  asked,  "  Why  does  he  call  me  boy? 
Does  he  not  know  it  is  neither  size  nor  age  but  understand 
ing  that  makes  a  man?  I  could  ask  him  an  hundred  ques 
tions,  none  of  which  he  could  answer." 

As  for  amusement  of  any  sort,  the  child  seems  to  have  had 
none.  When  he  was  eleven  years  old  he  entered  the  school 
of  Robert  Proud,  then  well  known  for  his  history  of  Penn 
sylvania.  This  gentleman  taught  the  boy  Greek  and  Latin 
and  had  reason  to  be  proud  of  his  pupil's  skill.  But,  as  the 
biographer  says,  "What  a  pity  it  is  that  the  application  which 
assimilates  man  most  to  the  exalted  idea  which  we  form  of 
immortal  perfection  should  so  certainly  tend  to  enfeeble  his 
body  and  shorten  his  mortal  existence,  while  the  brutalizing 
occupations  of  continued  and  thought-expelling  labor,  give 
firmness  and  vigor  and  duration  to  the  frame  of  man."  In 
short,  the  boy's  health  was  ruined,  and  even  the  enthusiastic 
teacher  of  Latin  and  Greek  advised  that  he  should  cease  all 
study  for  a  time.  This  was  in  his  sixteenth  year.  By  that 
time  he  had  made  versions  of  portions  of  the  book  of  Job, 
the  Psalms,  and  Ossian;  he  also  contemplated  three  epic 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN          7 

poems, — on  the  discovery  of  America,  on  the  conquest  of 
Peru,  and  on  Cortez's  expedition  to  Mexico. 

Upon  the  supposed  cessation  of  his  studies  he  was  sent 
to  take  long  walks  in  the  country.  His  parents  were  perhaps 
not  convinced  of  his  real  need  of  relaxation;  certainly  their 
provision  for  it  was  half-hearted.  His  walks  were  solitary, 
for  some  unexplained  reason,  and  as  he  was  absent-minded, 
he  frequently  forgot  to  come  back,  so  absorbed  was  he  in  his 
thoughts.  This  vagary,  we  are  told,  excited  great  uneasiness 
in  the  different  members  of  his  family.  He  probably  con 
vinced  his  parents,  as  he  convinced  his  biographer,  that  a 
variety  of  intellectual  excitement  would  be  the  equivalent  of 
relaxation.  Accordingly  he  added  stenography  to  his  other 
accomplishments,  and  began  to  study  French. 

Perhaps  we  should  credit  Brockden  Brown  with  a  fa; 
more  generous  boyhood  than  is  recorded  of  him.  His  affec 
tion  for  his  three  older  brothers,  Joseph,  Armit  and  James, 
implies  some  early  comradeship.  He  must  have  been  an 
idealist  from  the  first;  he  never  lost  his  high  dreams  of  life. 
Doubtless  a  man  as  attractive  as  he  must  have  had  a  certain 
charm  as  child  and  youth.  The  somber  picture  of  his  early 
years  is  not  his  fault.  If  he  had  ever  been  visited  by  a  ray 
of  humor,  his  biographer  was  not  the  man  to  notice  it.  But 
it  should  further  be  remembered  that  Brockden  Brown 
grew  up  in  troubled  times,  and  a  more  than  usual  seriousness 
enveloped  his  boyhood.  His  premature  interest  in  the  parlor 
map  may  have  been  almost  a  natural  thing  in  the  years  when 
the  Revolution  in  America  and  the  war  with  France  and 
Spain  abroad  were  altering  England's  holdings  and  making 
that  map  obsolete.  When  he  was  protesting  against  being 
called  a  boy  by  the  visitor,  Cornwallis  was  surrendering  at 
Yorktown.  If  his  boyhood  gave  him  no  other  wholly  sane 
and  admirable  training,  it  gave  him  patriotism  and  a  sense 
of  the  dignity  of  mankind  which  he  never  lost. 


8  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

III 

When  the  time  came  to  choose  a  profession,  Brockden 
Brown  was  apprenticed  to  a  Philadelphia  lawyer,  Alexander 
Wilcox.  Probably  his  reason  for  undertaking  this  profes 
sion  was  the  opportunity  it  afforded  for  intellectual  improve 
ment;  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  he  ever  cared  for  the  prac 
tical  opportunities  it  gave  him  for  advancement  in  public 
life.  His  office  duties  left  him  sufficient  time  to  cultivate 
his  gifts  as  he  chose;  otherwise  he  perhaps  would  have  taken 
the  necessary  time,  for  his  zeal  for  literary  improvement 
seems  to  have  been  insatiable.  He  corresponded  with  a  few 
friends,  chosen  for  their  sympathies  with  his  own  interests, 
and  he  kept  a  journal,  wherein  he  entered  his  thoughts,  exer 
cised  himself  in  composition,  and  even  copied  those  letters 
he  received  which  seemed  unusually  well  written.  He  also 
attended  carefully  to  his  handwriting,  a  clear  hand  being,  in 
his  opinion,  a  substantial  aid  to  success  in  the  law.  Of  one 
of  his  correspondents,  a  youth  named  Davidson,  he  inquired 
what  were  "the  relations,  dependence,  and  connection  of  the 
several  parts  of  knowledge,"  and  as  Davidson  was  appar 
ently  in  no  position  to  reply,  he  answered  himself  at  some 
length  in  his  diary.  Whatever  amusement  this  ambitious 
entry  will  occasion  to  the  casual  reader,  at  least  it  shows 
the  writer's  conscientious  groping  in  regions  of  thought  most 
often  neglected  by  literary  youth;  it  would  indicate,  if  we 
had  no  other  means  of  knowing,  that  Brockden  Brown  by 
nature  was  a  philosopher — perhaps  far  more  that  than 
artist.  At  the  same  time  the  disproportion  between  the  large 
question  and  its  answer  indicates  a  characteristic  lack  of 
thoroughness;  the  manner  of  his  utterance  is  stately,  but  he 
seems  appallingly  short  of  facts.  From  this  cause  his  curious 
and  energetic  mind,  in  most  if  not  all  of  his  writing,  is  un 
convincing,  and  the  result  is  more  disastrous  because  he 
depends,  not  upon  emotion,  but  upon  reason. 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN  9 

His  first  publication  was  in  the  Columbian  Magazine,  in 
August,  1789,  and  for  some  time  his  contributions  were  of 
the  newspaper  level  of  those  days,  interesting  chiefly  to  his 
friends.  The  first  public  attention  he  received  was  due  to  a 
printer's  blunder.  He  had  composed  a  poetical  address  to 
Franklin,  and  the  printer  for  reasons  unknown  substituted 
Washington's  name  throughout;  "Washington,"  as  the  au 
thor  says,  "therefore  stands  arrayed  in  awkward  colours. 
Philosophy  smiles  to  behold  her  darling  son;  she  turns  in 
horror  and  disgust  from  those  who  have  won  the  laurel  of 
victory  in  the  field  of  battle,  to  this  her  favourite  candidate 
who  had  never  participated  in  such  bloody  glory,  and  whose 
fame  was  derived  from  the  conquest  of  philosophy  alone. 
The  printer  by  his  blundering  ingenuity  made  the  subject 
ridiculous.  Every  word  of  this  clumsy  panegyric  was  a  direct 
slander  upon  Washington,  and  so  it  was  regarded  at  the 
time." 

Some  of  Brown's  friends  formed  a  debating  society,  in 
which  legal  cases  were  considered  and  decisions  pronounced. 
In  this  club  Brown  distinguished  himself  by  his  powers  of 
expression  and  by  the  judicial  manner  which  he  learned  to 
assume,  but  there  is  no  record  that  he  showed  special  ac 
quaintance  with  law.  In  another  organization,  a  Belles- 
Lettres  Club,  founded  by  that  friend  Davidson  who  failed 
to  settle  the  several  branches  of  knowledge,  Brockden  Brown 
was  a  more  important  figure — apparently  the  leader.  At  the 
first  meeting  of  this  literary  society  he  was  chosen  to  read  a 
paper  defining  its  aims.  In  spite  of  his  stilted  style  the  reader 
needs  only  a  little  sympathy  with  his  seriousness  to  find  solid 
qualities  in  the  essay.  It  is  worth  while  to  quote  the  passage 
in  which  he  suggests  the  directions  from  which  the  study  of 
language  may  be  approached;  few  young  men  at  any  time 
could  display  a  clearer  understanding  of  the  general  field. 
"The  student,"  he  says,  "may  examine  the  etymology  of  a 


10  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

language,  or  review  the  various  periods  of  its  history.  He  may 
trace  the  various  changes  it  has  undergone  to  their  respective 
causes,  determine  whether  they  have  been  produced  by  the 
lapse  of  time,  the  confusion  of  events,  or  by  foreign  coloniza 
tion.  He  may  set  forth  the  variety  of  its  dialects,  for  the  spe 
cific,  as  well  as  generic  difference  in  languages,  point  out  the 
difference  or  resemblance  between  them,  and  survey  them, 
accompanied  with  all  their  appendages  of  causes,  contrast 
and  consequence.  Is  the  language  of  its  poetry  distinct  from 
that  of  its  prose,  in  what  do  they  severally  consist  ?  Compare 
its  present  state  with  any  period  past  or  future,  and  thereby 
discover  whether  it  be  yet  in  its  progess  towards  perfection, 
or  stationary,  or  in  its  decline.  .  .  .  Besides  the  local  or  pro 
vincial  dialects  of  a  language,  another  variety  must  also  arise 
founded  upon  the  difference  in  manners  and  education  of 
those  who  speak  it.  This  distinction  can  only  take  place  in 
a  living  tongue;  in  such,  a  certain  elegance  of  phrase,  as  well 
as  of  manner,  is  the  criterion  of  politeness."  The  essay  pro 
ceeds  to  suggest  the  inquiries  that  can  be  made  into  compar 
ative  grammar  and  the  general  history  of  language. 

One  wonders  what  the  Philadelphia  youths  who  formed 
Brockden  Brown's  audience  on  this  occasion  really  thought 
of  the  frail,  untidily  dressed  author  as  he  declaimed  his 
weighty  sentences.  From  all  we  can  learn  they  respected 
him,  but  very  naturally  did  not  like  him.  He  had  fostered  in 
his  tastes,  perhaps  unconsciously,  a  fine  contempt  for  ordi 
nary  practical  life;  human  beings  were  fast  becoming  to  him 
objects  of  study,  or  opponents  to  reason  with.  He  neglected 
his  law  books  more  and  more  and  devoted  his  time  to  letters 
and  the  sort  of  philosophy  he  was  capable  of.  Perhaps  it  was 
less  a  surprise  than  a  disappointment  to  his  parents  and 
brothers  when  he  announced  that  the  law  was  too  earthly  and 
sordid  for  his  nature;  he  would  devote  himself  to  literature. 
The  fact  that  he  depended  for  his  support  entirely  upon  his 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         1 1 

parents,  somewhat  obscures  the  magnanimity  of  his  decision, 
but  he  was  sincere  in  his  choice  and  none  of  his  friends  could 
dissuade  him. 

IV 

It  was  some  time  before  he  began  his  literary  career — such 
careers  not  being  easy  to  start;  and  meanwhile,  perhaps  to 
avoid  the  expostulations  of  disappointed  relatives  and  friends, 
he  went  to  New  York,  where  he  already  had  a  few  acquaint 
ances.  His  stay  in  that  city  was  at  first  an  aimless  sort  of 
visiting,  but  gradually  he  came  under  positive  influences  that 
began  to  shape  his  character  and  his  career.  His  best  friend 
was  a  Dr.  Elihu  Hubbard  Smith,  a  Yale  graduate  who  had 
made  his  acquaintance  while  studying  medicine  in  Philadel 
phia.  In  many  respects  his  interests  were  akin  to  Brown's; 
they  both  were  literary  and  disposed  to  the  same  sort  of 
studies.  Smith's  example  had  the  good  effect,  it  is  said,  of 
making  Brown  less  untidy  in  dress  and  more  systematic  in 
his  habits.  It  was  through  Smith  that  Brown  met  William 
Dunlap,  his  future  biographer;  through  Smith  also  he  was 
introduced  to  the  Friendly  Club,  a  literary  society  that  met 
once  a  week  at  the  home  of  some  member.  Apparently  the 
purpose  of  this  circle  was  much  like  that  of  the  Belles-Lettres 
Club,  where  Brown  had  cut  something  of  a  figure,  but  in  the 
New  York  society  he  was  immediately  subjected,  as  a  provin 
cial,  to  some  wholesome  discipline.  In  his  journal  he  wrote: 
"  Last  evening  spent  with  the  clubists  at  K.'s.  Received  from 
the  candour  of  K.  a  severe  castigation  for  the  crimes  of  dis- 
putatiousness  and  dogmatism.  Hope  to  profit  by  the  lesson 
that  he  taught  me." 

These  days  in  New  York  seem  to  have  given  Brown  the  best 
part  of  his  education — some  acquaintance  with  life.  They 
came  too  late  to  remold  his  character,  but  they  broadened 
his  outlook  and  interested  him  in  common  things.  He  trav 
eled  a  little  in  Connecticut  and  elsewhere.  The  first  really 


12  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

human  document  we  have  from  him  is  the  record  of  a  trip 
to  Rockaway  with  some  others  of  his  literary  circle.  This 
account,  in  the  form  of  a  letter,  was  published  in  a  literary 
magazine,  and  can  therefore  hardly  be  reckoned  as  a  spon 
taneous  composition,  but  it  has  vivacity,  and  it  throws  a  pleas 
ant  light  on  Brown's  character.  Many  of  the  incidents  are  ob 
viously  true.  He  began  the  trip  by  forgetting  to  take  enough 
clothes  for  the  stay,  and  he  broke  his  umbrella  on  the  way 
down.  He  tried  sea-bathing  at  sundown,  the  usual  time  for 
it,  and  the  following  day  went  in  late  in  the  morning,  which 
he  found  much  more  comfortable.  Unless  some  of  the  de 
tails  are  inserted  for  effect,  he  had  learned  to  join  in  mild 
forms  of  conviviality.  Toward  the  end  of  the  paper,  however, 
the  unsocial  note  is  heard;  the  author  passes  from  his  gentle 
glow  of  good  fellowship  to  the  dull  gray  of  his  recluse  rnood, — 

"As  to  myself,  I  am  never  at  home,  never  in  my  element  at 
such  a  place  as  this.  A  thousand  nameless  restraints  incum- 
ber  my  speech  and  my  limbs,  and  I  cannot  even  listen  to 
others  with  a  gay  unembarrassed  mind.  .  .  .  This  jaunt  to 
Rockaway  has  left  few  agreeable  traces  behind  it.  All  I  re 
member  with  any  pleasure,  are  the  appearance  of  the  wide 
ocean,  and  the  incidents  of  bathing  in  its  surges.  Had  I  been 
a  botanist,  and  lighted  upon  some  new  plant;  a  mineralogist, 
and  found  an  agate  or  a  petrifaction;  a  naturalist,  and  caught 
such  a  butterfly  as  I  never  saw  before,  I  should  have  reflected 
upon  the  journey  with  no  little  satisfaction.  As  it  was,  I  set 
my  foot  in  the  City  with  no  other  sentiment,  but  that  of  re 
gret,  for  not  having  employed  these  two  days  in  a  very  dif 
ferent  manner." 

One  other  passage  in  this  rather  significant  account  may 
well  serve  as  unconscious  criticism  of  the  novels  he  was  later  to 
write.  At  the  table,  he  says,  there  was  much  good  humor  and 
some  wit,  but  he  could  not  remember  a  single  good  thing  de 
serving  of  record,  and,  he  goes  on,  "my  powers  do  not  enable 
me  to  place  the  commonplace  characters  around  me  in  an  in- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         13 

teresting  or  amusing  point  of  view."  It  is  not  without  interest 
as  a  paradox  that  the  first  American  novelist,  writing  in  the 
first  years  of  conscious  American  democracy,  should  have 
been  distinguished  by  his  apathy  toward  every-day,  common 
place  humanity. 

His  own  discomfort  in  society  he  seems  not  to  have  attrib 
uted  to  narrowness  of  interest  or  fault  in  his  breeding.  For 
a  youth  of  his  temperament  it  was  simpler  to  find  the  fault  in 
society.  Yet  it  is  mere  justice  to  make  plain  that  this  reason 
ing  resulted  from  better  causes  than  egotism.  The  generous 
estimate  in  which  all  high-spirited  youth  then  held  human 
nature  filled  them  with  dreams  of  social  reform,  such  as  would 
adapt  the  world  to  the  needs  of  the  soul.  Brown  thought  too 
nobly  of  his  literary  ideals  to  blame  himself  for  lack  of  culture; 
it  was  society  that  was  wrong, — that  discomforted  him  with 
its  frivolities. 

Social  reforms  of  the  Utopian  sort  began  at  this  time  to 
occupy  him,  partly  because  of  his  reading  in  Godwin  and 
other  Old  World  revolutionaries,  and  partly  because  of  the 
uneasiness  of  social  convention  he  himself  had  come  to  feel. 
The  censorious  tone  belongs  of  necessity  to  reformers. 
There  was  no  persecution  nor  misunderstanding  in  Brockden 
Brown's  life,  as  there  was  in  Shelley's,  to  justify  it.  If  he  had 
been  unfortunate  in  the  forcing  process  of  his  education,  he 
was  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  realize  it,  and  upon  the 
social  system  that  lay  about  him  time  and  convention  had  as 
yet  laid  little  burden.  It  is  perhaps  not  ungenerous  to  ascribe 
the  Utopias  he  dreamt  of  in  New  York,  the  changes  he  recom 
mended  in  the  society  with  which  he  supposed  himself  famil 
iar,  to  certain  twinges  of  conscience.  This  high  but  vague 
career  upon  which  he  was  entering  had  for  a  background  a 
disappointed  family  and  his  financial  dependence  upon  them. 
It  was  not  unnatural  he  should  come  to  see  that  the  time  was 
out  of  joint. 


14  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

In  1797  appeared  Alcuin,  a  dialogue  upon  the  social  posi 
tion  of  women.  This  dialogue,  a  natural  development  of 
Brown's  debating,  presented  with  some  thoroughness  the 
problems  of  the  modern  institution  of  marriage,  and  ended  by 
advocating  divorce  of  that  summary  kind  that  Milton  and 
Shelley — more  convincingly — pleaded  for.  Brown's  interest 
in  the  subject  was  purely  academic.  Only  a  year  or  so  before 
he  had  been  congratulating  himself  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  that 
his  eyesight  was  poor  and  his  health  weak;  perhaps  Provi 
dence  by  that  circumstance,  he  thought,  destined  him  to 
happy  freedom  from  the  temptations  and  entanglements  of 
life.  Certainly  his  Socratic  dialogue — in  which  the  mantle  of 
Diotima  falls  upon  one  Mrs.  Carter — indicates  no  depth  of 
experience,  nor  even  of  interest  in  the  subject.  To  this 
same  period,  or  somewhat  later,  belong  also  the  fragmentary 
Sketches  of  a  History  oj  Carsol  and  Sketches  of  a  History  oj 
the  Carrils  and  Ormes,  in  which  he  intended  to  incorporate 
historical  romance  with  Utopian  proposals. 

A  peculiar  faith  in  human  nature,  even  when  it  was  in  error, 
and  a  Utopian  vein  in  his  attitude  toward  society,  continued  to 
distinguish  Brown's  maturer  work.  Of  his  faith  in  the  in 
dividual  something  will  be  said  later.  His  Utopian  schemes 
are  ineffectual  for  the  reason  just  suggested,  that  they  grew 
out  of  a  literary  fashion,  not  out  of  the  pressure  of  life's  neces 
sities.  They  are  no  more  insincere  than  were  Shelley's  far 
more  splendid  dreams  in  Queen  Mob,  but  they  take  from 
Brown's  writing  the  impression  of  reality. 


Brown's  literary  career  begins  in  1798,  with  his  first  pub 
lished  novel,  Wieland,  or  The  Trans  formation.  An  earlier 
novel  had  indeed  been  written  and  prepared  for  publication, 
but  on  account  of  difficulties  following  the  death  of  the  printer 
it  was  abandoned.  The  material  of  this  novel,  Sky  Walk,  was 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN          15 

reworked  into  later  stories.  This  earlier  attempt  had  been 
preceded  by  an  unfinished  romance,  in  the  form  of  letters  be 
tween  the  different  characters,  after  the  model  furnished  by 
Richardson,  but  in  substance  showing  a  transition  from  the 
journalizing  and  debating  that  had  been  Brown's  training,  to 
the  manner  of  the  story-teller.  The  fragments  are  sufficiently 
complete  to  indicate  at  least  one  character,  Golden,  who  in  the 
mystery  of  his  behavior  and  his  history  is  a  typical  Brockden 
Brown  hero.  But  the  fragments  are  more  occupied  with  life 
in  general  than  with  any  particular  character  or  story,  and 
this  also  remains  typical  of  the  author,  even  at  his  best. 

Wieland  gives  Brown  his  place  in  American  literature. 
Other  stories  of  his,  such  as  Arthur  Mervyn,  have  better  qual 
ities,  but  this  first  book  fixed  the  type  of  his  writing,  and  his 
reputation  would  probably  have  suffered  little  had  he  added 
nothing  more.  It  was  evident  at  once  that  he  belonged  to  the 
so-called  Gothic  school,  then  the  fashion  in  Europe.  Briefly, 
the  mark  of  this  school  was  the  representation  of  horror  and 
mystery  such  as  might  accumulate  in  the  legends  of  medieval 
castles.  Supernatural  appearances,  the  expiation  of  crimes 
and  the  working  out  of  curses,  were  the  substance  of  such 
tales,  of  which  Horace  Walpole's  Castle  of  Otranto,  1764,  is 
usually  taken  as  the  first  English  example.  The  most  typical 
story  of  this  sort,  however,  is  Mrs.  Anne  Radcliffe's  Mys 
teries  o)  Udolpho,  1794,  in  which  the  effects  of  horror  are 
richer  and  more  convincing  than  in  Walpole's  amateurish 
book. 

The  interest  in  medieval  romance  was,  of  course,  but  a  part 
of  the  so-called  romantic  revival,  which  turned  from  classi 
cism  to  the  old  ballads  and  legends,  the  old  buildings  and  su 
perstitions  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Walpole's  attempt  to  tell  a 
Gothic  legend  was  but  one  aspect  of  that  enthusiasm  for  the 
past  which  made  him  try  to  turn  his  house  into  a  Gothic 
castle.  The  antiquity  of  legend  or  architecture  was  for  him 


16  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

its  charm,  and  the  remoteness  of  time  was  also  for  Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe  and  the  romancers  generally  essential  to  the  effect  of 
mystery  they  desired.  In  dealing  with  this  mystery,  however, 
two  very  different  methods  might  be  followed.  The  author 
might  accept  it  imaginatively,  and  make  it  live  convincingly 
before  the  reader,  as  Scott  would  do,  or  Poe;  or  the  mystery 
might  be  explained  more  or  less  rationally,  and  the  ghost 
would  turn  out  to  be  but  a  sleep-walker,  or  some  fugitive  with 
a  knowledge  of  secret  doors.  For  either  method  the  story 
needed  an  architectural  setting, — the  gloom  of  Gothic  castles, 
to  prepare  the  mind  for  the  supernatural;  the  house  is  almost 
a  character  in  the  tale.  This  typically  German  setting  was 
imitated  effectively  by  Poe,  as  in  The  Fall  oj  the  House  of 
Usher,  and  was  naturalized  on  American  soil  by  Hawthorne, 
in  The  House  oj  The  Seven  Gables. 

Brockden  Brown  follows  the  rationalizing  method  of  Mrs. 
Radcliffe;  at  the  end  of  the  tale  he  explains  the  mystery. 
He  places  no  dependence  upon  age  or  architecture  for  his  ef 
fects;  for  it  was  his  ambition  to  write  truly  American  stories, 
and  he  liked  to  set  the  plot  in  his  own  state,  or  in  the  country 
he  knew,  and  in  his  own  time.  As  a  result  he  could  make  no 
use  of  the  trap-doors,  the  secret  passages  and  hooting  owls 
with  which  the  Gothic  romance  is  usually  furnished;  but  this 
loss  was  of  no  importance,  as  he  depended  for  his  mystery 
upon  more  refined  phenomena.  In  Wieland  we  have  the 
story  of  a  susceptible  mind  driven  to  crime  and  suicide  by 
supernatural  voices,  which  turn  out  to  be  the  work  of  a  ven 
triloquist.  Given  the  hero's  character,  with  its  tragic  pro 
pensities,  and  the  inexplicable  ventriloquist,  there  is  no  need 
of  a  particular  setting.  The  environment  in  Brown's  novels 
habitually  takes  what  color  it  has  from  the  temper  of  the  story; 
he  had  no  command  whatever  of  local  color,  and  was  as  far 
from  portraying  American  as  Gothic  scenery. 

The  quality  of  Brown's  literary  genius  has  been  investi- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         17 

gated  by  comparing  his  method  of  explaining  the  mystery  in  a 
supernatural  tale,  with  Scott's  method  of  leaving  the  reader 
to  digest  the  mystery  according  to  his  imaginative  power.  A 
better  understanding,  however,  of  Brown's  limitations  can  be 
reached  by  a  comparison  with  Hawthorne,  who  adopted 
Brown's  method  of  explaining  the  mystery  rationally,  yet  kept 
the  poetic  atmosphere  of  his  romance  unharmed.  In  The 
House  of  The  Seven  Gables  the  Pyncheon  curse  is  rationalized 
without  ceasing  to  appear  a  divine  judgment.  In  The  Marble 
Faun  the  rationalizing  is  of  the  utmost  delicacy;  the  mystery 
of  the  Faun  is  kept  in  the  realm  of  superstitious  legend,  yet 
explanations  are  suggested,  and  no  vulgar  curiosity  interferes 
with  the  deep  psychological  interest  in  the  characters.  Brock- 
den  Brown,  however,  tries  to  increase  the  mystery  by  reserving 
its  solution  till  the  end,  thereby  appealing  to  an  intellectual 
curiosity  rather  than  to  that  emotional  sympathy  Hawthorne 
rouses;  and  when  the  solution  does  come,  it  is  insufficient. 
In  Wieland  the  reader  does  not  believe  that  ventriloquism  can 
accomplish  the  effects  he  has  witnessed.  The  disclosure  of 
the  secret  to  the  miserable  Wieland  is  clearly  intended  as  the 
tragic  climax,  wherein  the  hero  realizes  the  extent  of  his  de 
lusions;  but  the  reader  is  too  preoccupied  himself  with  the 
surprising  disclosure  to  follow  the  hero's  fortunes. 

It  is  quite  evident  that  if  Brown's  reputation  depended  only 
upon  his  plots,  it  would  have  starved  entirely.  The  story  of 
Wieland  is  of  the  utmost  absurdity,  if  recounted  without 
sympathy,  as  plain  fact.  A  youth  named  Carwin,  who  has  se 
cretly  made  himself  an  expert  ventriloquist,  happens  upon  a 
family  already  predisposed  to  insanity,  and  straightway  uses 
his  art  to  ruin  what  little  reason  they  still  have.  That  is  the 
bare  plot.  It  is  incredible  that  ventriloquism  should  accom 
plish  all  that  we  are  told ;  it  is  almost  incredible  that  such  a 
family  as  the  Wielands  should  exist.  They  believe  everything 
the  voices  utter,  even  when  they  are  comparatively  sane. 


i8  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Their  tendency  to  insanity  is  attributed  not  only  to  inherit 
ance, — natural  enough,  in  view  of  the  elder  Wieland's  char 
acter, — but  to  his  death  by  spontaneous  combustion,  which 
deranged  both  son  and  daughter,  particularly  the  son.  Clara 
Wieland  tells  the  story — how  the  mysterious  voices  around 
the  temple  her  father  had  built,  terrorize  her  brother  and  her 
self,  separate  her  from  her  lover,  Pleyell,  and  finally  direct  the 
brother  to  kill  his  wife  and  children, — which  he  does,  being 
by  this  time  quite  insane.  He  is  imprisoned,  but  escapes,  in 
tending  to  kill  Clara;  but  the  voices  make  him  realize  his 
crime,  and  he  forthwith  kills  himself.  Clara  marries  Pleyell, 
and  the  villain  is  allowed  to  go  unpunished. 

Perhaps  the  most  bothersome  thing  in  this  strange  story  is 
the  question  why  Carwin,  the  ventriloquist,  acted  his  fiendish 
part.  The  author  makes  no  attempt  to  explain.  In  all  his 
stories  there  is  what  now  seems  indifference  to  motive,  es 
pecially  in  the  characters  that  do  wrong.  Yet  Carwin,  like 
other  evil-doers  in  this  type  of  story,  is  thoroughly  fascinating. 
It  is  only  in  afterthought  that  the  reader  sees  his  devilishness. 
Artistically  weak  as  a  character  so  unmotivated,  so  prepos 
terous  in  its  career,  might  at  first  sight  seem  to  be,  Carwin  is 
largely  the  attraction  of  the  book,  and  other  characters  like 
him  explain  Brockden  Brown's  claim  to  remembrance.  The 
author  intended  to  give  a  complete  account  of  Carwin's  life, 
and  the  unfinished  Memoirs  of  Carwin  the  Biloquist  promised 
as  good  reading  as  any  of  the  novels.  In  Brockden  Brown's 
imagination  he  was  an  unusually  gifted  youth  turning  gradu 
ally  into  a  fiend  through  the  very  possession  of  his  gifts.  This 
problem — the  peril  of  life's  blessings,  if  it  may  be  so  phrased — 
was  in  one  form  or  another  a  favorite  subtlety  of  the  Roman 
tic  mind.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Brockden  Brown,  in  the 
very  center  of  Revolutionary  movements,  should  have  that 
faith  in  the  possibilities  of  human  nature  and  its  gifts,  which 
animated  Burns  and  Byron  and  Shelley.  But  in  such  times 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         19 

of  faith  in  man's  intellect  some  philosophers  are  usually  at 
tracted  to  the  darker  speculation  of  man's  destiny, — to  that 
immoderate  thirst  for  knowledge,  or  power,  or  both — which 
in  other  ages  gave  us  the  legends  of  Lucifer  and  Faust. 
Byron  and  the  spirit  over  Europe  which  he  so  widely  repre 
sented,  chose  to  view  such  tragic  personalities  as  passive  in  the 
hands  of  their  fate,  committing  willingly  no  crime,  but  driven 
to  evil  by  their  natures,  for  which  only  Heaven  was  account 
able.  So  the  type  is  represented  in  Byron's  Cain. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Brockden  Brown,  exemplary 
Philadelphian,  was  laying  Byronic  charges  at  Heaven's  door; 
he  had  his  model,  not  in  Byron,  whose  career  began  a  decade 
later,  but  in  Godwin,  whose  Caleb  Williams  is  not  only  peni 
tent  but  really  entitled  to  pity,  and  Falkland  himself,  the 
arch-villain  in  Godwin's  story,  has  moments  of  un-Byronic 
softening.  But  in  the  character  of  Carwin  Brown  was  clearly  ; 
developing  the  theme  that  the  quest  of  knowledge  is  morally 
dangerous.  What  sympathy  we  have  for  him  comes  from  the J 
difficulties  his  father  put  in  the  way  of  his  education,  but  the 
conclusion  the  author  wishes  us  to  reach  is  that  his  guilt,  the 
deception  he  practiced  on  mankind,  "was  the  offspring  of  a 
fatal  necessity,  that  the  injustice  of  others  gave  it  birth  and 
made  it  unavoidable." 

A  character  which  is  so  completely  the  creature  of  a  ruling  ' 
passion  must  seem  doomed,  set  apart  from  the  race.  That  I 
theme  of  loneliness,  which  Shelley's  heroes  and  Byron's  illus 
trate,  and  the  poets  themselves  illustrated  in  their  lives;  which 
was  to  find  such  splendid  embodiment  in  the  character  of 
Leatherstocking,  and  which  diffused  itself  through  Haw 
thorne's  genius, — here  made  its  entrance  into  American  liter 
ature.  The  loneliness  in  this  book  is  not  reserved  for  Carwin ; 
all  the  characters,  in  different  ways,  share  in  it.  The  older 
Wieland  is  set  apart  from  society  by  his  religious  mania;  Clara 
Wieland,  who  tells  the  family  tragedy,  by  those  awful  expe- 


20  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

\  riences  is  made  peculiar — reserved,  as  she  says,  for  a  destiny 
without  alleviation  and  without  example;  and  her  brother,  of 
/course,  is  completely  isolated  by  his  awful  fate. 

Brockden  Brown  lacked  what  may  be  called  the  social  im 
agination;  his  temper  and  training  prevented  him  from  think 
ing  of  life  in  those  complex  relations  which  normally  make  up 
human  intercourse.  He  cannot  picture  a  family.  But  in  im 
agining  the  psychological  experiences  of  an  individual,  es 
pecially  under  stress  of  excitement,  he  has  real  power,  and  the 
fame  of  Wieland  in  its  time  was  due  to  this  quality  of  truth. 
The  outward  circumstances  of  the  novel — the  spontaneous 
combustion  and  ventriloquism, — are  but  slightly  related  to  the 
author's  main  interest;  Wieland's  progress  to  insanity,  step 
by  step,  is  the  real  story,  and  any  cause  of  that  insanity  is  suffi 
cient  for  Brown's  purpose.  Nor  does  the  stilted,  elaborate 
style  conceal  the  keen  penetration  which  distinguishes  one 
gradation  of  Wieland's  madness  from  the  next.  When  he 
tells  of  his  wife's  death,  Brown  sees  to  it  that  the  physical 
trick  of  ventriloquism  is  kept  in  the  background;  whatever 
doubts  the  reader  has  had,  have  been  absorbed  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  story;  here  both  the  madman  and  the  reader  are 
intent  on  the  murder — realistic  enough,  to  be  sure,  but  not 
so  much  so  as  to  interrupt  the  fascination  of  the  madman's 
increasing  disease.  The  scene  illustrates  the  book,  as  a  story 
of  the  mind : 

"I  raised  my  head  and  regarded  her  with  steadfast  looks. 
I  muttered  something  about  death,  and  the  injunctions  of  my 
duty.  At  these  words  she  shrunk  back,  and  looked  at  me 
with  a  new  expression  of  anguish.  After  a  pause,  she  clasped 
her  hands,  and  exclaimed : 

"  *  O  Wieland !  Wieland !  God  grant  that  I  am  mistaken ; 
but  surely  something  is  wrong.  I  see  it;  it  is  too  plain;  thou 
art  undone, — lost  to  me  and  to  thyself.'  At  the  same  time, 
she  gazed  on  my  features  with  intensest  anxiety,  in  hope  that 
different  symptoms  would  take  place.  I  replied  with  vehe- 


/ 

V 

' 

CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         21 

mence, — '  Undone!  No;  my  duty  is  known,  and  I  thank  my 
God  that  my  cowardice  is  now  vanquished,  and  I  have  power 
to  fulfil  it.  Catherine!  I  pity  the  weakness  of  nature;  I  pity 
thee,  but  must  not  spare.  Thy  life  is  claimed  from  my  hands. 
Thou  must  die ! ' 

"Fear  was  now  added  to  her  grief.  'What  mean  you? 
Why  talk  you  of  death  ?  Bethink  yourself,  Wieland;  bethink 
yourself,  and  this  fit  will  pass.  O  why  came  I  hither!  Why 
did  you  drag  me  hither  ? ' 

"  *  I  brought  thee  hither  to  fulfil  a  divine  command.  I  am 
appointed  thy  destroyer,  and  destroy  thee  I  must.'  Saying 
this  I  seized  her  wrists.  She  shrieked  aloud,  and  endeavored 
to  free  herself  from  my  grasp;  but  her  efforts  were  vain. 

"  *  Surely,  surely,  Wieland,  thou  dost  not  mean  it.  Am  I 
not  thy  wife?  And  wouldst  thou  kill  me?  Thou  wilt  not; 
and  yet — I  see — thou  art  Wieland  no  longer!  A  fury  re 
sistless  and  horrible  possesses  thee! — spare  me — spare — help 
—help—' 

"Till  her  breath  was  stopped  she  shrieked  for  help, — for 
mercy.  When  she  could  speak  no  longer,  her  gestures,  her 
looks  appealed  to  my  compassion.  My  accursed  hand  was 
irresolute  and  tremulous.  I  meant  thy  death  to  be  sudden, 
thy  struggles  to  be  brief.  Alas !  my  heart  was  infirm ;  my  re 
solves  mutable.  Thrice  I  slackened  my  grasp,  and  life  kept 
its  hold,  though  in  the  midst  of  pangs.  Her  eyeballs  started 
from  their  sockets.  Grimness  and  distortion  took  place  of 
all  that  used  to  bewitch  me  into  transport,  and  subdue  me 
into  reverence. 

"I  was  commissioned  to  kill  thee,  but  not  to  torment  thee 
with  the  foresight  of  thy  death ;  not  to  multiply  thy  fears,  and 
prolong  thy  agonies.  Haggard,  and  pale,  and  lifeless,  at 
length  thou  ceasedst  to  contend  with  thy  destiny. 

"This  was  a  moment  of  triumph.  Thus  had  I  successfully 
subdued  the  stubbornness  of  human  passions;  the  victim 
which  had  been  demanded  was  given;  the  deed  was  done 
past  recall. 

"I  lifted  the  corpse  in  my  arms  and  laid  it  on  the  bed.  I 
gazed  upon  it  with  delight.  Such  was  the  elation  of  my 
thoughts,  that  I  even  broke  into  laughter.  I  clapped  my 
hands  and  exclaimed,  'It  is  done!  Thy  sacred  duty  is  ful- 


22  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

filled.  To  that  I  have  sacrificed,  O  my  God !  thy  last  and  best 
gift,  my  wife!' 

"  For  a  while  I  thus  soared  above  frailty.  I  imagined  I  had 
set  myself  forever  beyond  the  reach  of  selfishness;  but  my  im 
aginations  were  false.  This  rapture  quickly  subsided.  I 
looked  again  at  my  wife.  My  joyous  ebullitions  vanished,  and 
I  asked  myself  who  it  was  whom  I  saw.  .  .  . 

"I  will  not  dwell  upon  my  lapse  into  desperate  and  out 
rageous  sorrow.  The  breath  of  heaven  that  sustained  me  was 
withdrawn,  and  I  sunk  into  mere  man.  I  leaped  from  the 
floor;  I  dashed  my  head  against  the  wall;  I  uttered  screams 
of  horror;  I  panted  after  torment  and  pain.  Eternal  fire,  and 
the  bickerings  of  hell,  compared  with  what  I  felt,  were  music 
and  a  bed  of  roses. 

"I  thank  my  God  that  this  degeneracy  was  transient,  that 
he  deigned  once  more  to  raise  me  aloft.  I  thought  upon  what 
I  had  done  as  a  sacrifice  to  duty,  and  was  calm.  My  wife  was 
dead;  but  I  reflected,  that,  though  this  source  of  human  con 
solation  was  closed,  yet  others  were  still  open.  If  the  trans 
ports  of  a  husband  were  no  more,  the  feelings  of  a  father  had 
still  scope  for  exercise.  When  remembrance  of  their  mother 
should  excite  too  keen  a  pang,  I  would  look  upon  them  and 
be  comforted. 

"While  I  revolved  these  ideas,  new  warmth  flowed  in  my 
heart.  I  was  wrong.  These  feelings  were  the  growth  of  self 
ishness.  Of  this  I  was  not  aware,  and  to  dispel  the  mist  that 
obscured  my  perceptions,  a  new  effulgence  and  a  new  man 
date  were  necessary. 

"  From  these  thoughts  I  was  recalled  by  a  ray  that  was  shot 
into  the  room.  A  voice  spake  like  that  I  had  before  heard, — 
1  Thou  hast  done  well;  but  all  is  not  done, — the  sacrifice  is  in 
complete, — thy  children  must  be  offered, — they  must  perish 
with  their  mother.' " 

Almost  before  Wieland  was  published  Brockden  Brown 
wrote  his  second  novel,  Ormond,  or  the  Secret  Witness,  which 
with  two  other  novels,  Arthur  Mervyn  and  Edgar  Huntly,  ap 
peared  in  1799.  Brown  is  said  to  have  worked  at  this  time  on 
five  novels  at  once.  Ormond  is  one  of  his  inferior  books;  per- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         23 

haps  its  chief  right  to  remembrance  is  that  Shelley  admired 
its  long-suffering  heroine,  Constantia  Dudley,  and  used  her 
name  in  one  of  his  poems.  The  plot  of  the  story  shows  the  *' 
strong  influence  of  Godwin,  especially  in  the  idea  of  an  ad 
mirable  villain.  Ormond,  a  political  and  sociological  en 
thusiast,  who  has  revolutionary  ideas  about  religion  and 
marriage,  but  whose  impulses  are  noble  and  generous,  falls 
in  love  with  Constantia.  Other  women  have  been  susceptible 
to  his  fascinations,  arid  Constantia  realizes  his  magnetic  in 
fluence,  but  her  steadfast  virtue  withstands  his  pursuit  of  her. 
Ormond's  remarkable  character  is  turned  gradually  into  that 
of  a  fiend;  he  murders  Constantia's  father,  and  compels  her 
finally,  in  self-defense,  to  kill  him.  Constantia's  patient  and 
exalted  virtues,  such  as  Shelley  could  admire,  make  her,  as  a 
critic  has  said,  a  kind  of  Griselda,  but  the  same  critic  has  also 
said  justly  that  she  is  a  bore.  "The  contemplation  of  such  a 
character  in  the  abstract  is  more  imposing  than  the  minute 
details  by  which  we  attain  the  knowledge  of  it;  and  although 
there  is  nothing,  we  are  told,  which  the  gods  look  down  upon 
with  more  satisfaction,  than  a  brave  mind  struggling  with  the 
storms  of  adversity,  yet,  when  these  come  in  the  guise  of 
poverty  and  all  the  train  of  teasing  annoyances  in  domestic 
life,  the  tale,  if  long  protracted,  too  often  produces  a  sensa 
tion  of  weariness  scarcely  to  be  compensated  by  the  moral 
grandeur  of  the  spectacle." 

Ormond,  the  hero,  is  more  interesting  to  the  student  of  the 
novel;  for  impossible  as  he  seems  to  be  to  the  modern  reader, 
he  is  one  of  the  chief  examples  in  America  of  that  type  of  ad 
mirable  villain  of  which  Falkland,  in  Caleb  Williams,  and 
later  Byron's  heroes  generally,  are  the  standard.  It  is  not 
usual  to  associate  Byron  with  Brockden  Brown,  nor  with  this 
special  character  in  fiction;  what  cannot  be  attributed  to  God 
win's  influence  has  been  connected,  somewhat  vaguely,  with 
the  popular  notions  of  Freemasonry  in  Brockden  Brown's 


24  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

time.  It  is  said  that  Brown's  evil  heroes  are  permeated  with 
the  notion  that  the  end  justifies  the  means;  they  begin  with 
noble  ideals,  which  they  deliberately  choose  to  serve  by  moral 
short  cuts,  until  they  are  entangled  in  their  schemes;  and  their 
ideals  and  methods  have  been  ascribed  to  the  Illuminati,  the 
secret  order  whose  part  in  the  American  and  French  Revolu 
tions  is  said  to  have  been  a  large  one.  Reference  to  such  a 
society  is  certainly  made  in  the  Memoirs  of  Carwin,  but  it 
seems  more  rational  to  ascribe  his  conception  of  the  amicable 
villain  to  those  sentimental  idealizations  of  human  nature 
which  distinguished  the  age,  and  which  later  produced,  and 
were  further  fostered  by,  Byron's  heroic  outcasts. 

Wieland  and  Ormond  were  the  first  considerable  romances 
produced  in  America.  Their  importance  as  pioneer  work  was 
recognized  from  the  beginning,  and  they  brought  their  hard 
working  young  author  a  place  of  honor  in  the  community,  if 
not  much  pecuniary  reward.  In  a  letter  to  his  brother  James, 
dated  from  New  York  on  February  15,  1799,  he  gives  a  hint 
of  the  quick  vogue  of  Ormond,  published  only  in  that  year: 

"My  social  hours  and  schemes  are  in  their  customary 
state.  ...  Up  till  eleven,  and  abed  till  eight,  plying  the 
quill  or  the  book,  and  conversing  with  male  or  female  friends, 
constitutes  the  customary  series  of  my  amusements  and  em 
ployments.  I  add  somewhat,  though  not  so  much  as  I  might 
if  I  were  so  inclined,  to  the  number  of  my  friends.  I  find  to 
be  the  writer  of  Wieland  and  Ormond  is  a  greater  recommen 
dation  than  I  ever  imagined  it  would  be." 

VI 

No  account  of  the  art  of  Brockden  Brown  is  complete 
without  some  notice  of  the  book  which  served  as  his  model, 
William  Godwin's  Caleb  Williams,  frequently  mentioned  in 
these  pages.  Godwin,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  author 
of  the  Inquiry  Concerning  Political  Justice,  and  more  famous 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         25 

in  literary  history  as  Shelley's  father-in-law.  Philosophy  and 
social  problems,  rather  than  literature,  were  his  occupation, 
but  he  had  an  admirable  narrative  gift,  and  his  great  novel, 
published  in  1794,  made  an  immediate  and  lasting  place  for 
itself.  Brockden  Brown  read  it  early,  and  for  him  it  was  al 
ways  the  standard  of  story-telling.  Before  Alcuin  was  pub 
lished,  while  he  was  writing  his  first  and  unfinished  romance, 
he  says  in  his  journal,  of  this  attempt  at  fiction,  "  What  is  the 
nature  or  merit  of  my  performance?  This  question  is  not 
for  me  to  answer.  My  decision  is  favorable  or  otherwise,  ac 
cording  to  the  views  I  take  of  the  subject.  When  a  mental 
comparison  is  made  between  this  and  the  mass  of  novels,  I 
am  inclined  to  be  pleased  with  my  own  production.  But 
when  the  objects  of  comparison  are  changed,  and  I  revolve 
the  transcendant  merits  of  Caleb  Williams,  my  pleasure  is 
diminished,  and  is  preserved  from  a  total  extinction  only  by 
the  reflection  that  this  performance  is  the  first." 

Godwin  intended,  as  he  said,  to  show  in  his  novel  the  modes 
of  domestic  and  unrecorded  despotism,  by  which  man  be 
comes  the  destroyer  of  man.  Fortunately  for  literature  the 
instinct  to  tell  a  thrilling  story  was  too  much  for  this  didactic 
purpose.  No  one  takes  the  persecution  of  Williams  by  Falk 
land  as  a  typical  record  of  society  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  no  one  cares  whether  the  record  is  typical  or 
not;  it  is  engrossing,  and  in  the  given  circumstances  of  the 
plot  it  represents  character  faithfully.  Caleb  Williams  is  a 
young  servant  in  the  household  of  Mr.  Falkland,  a  man  of 
generous  virtues.  Williams  has  every  reason  for  gratitude  to 
him,  and  conies  to  honor  him,  as  does  the  reader  also.  But 
the  servant's  one  fault,  curiosity,  leads  him  to  inquire  into  the 
cause  of  Falkland's  secluded  life,  and  by  wrong-headed  per 
sistence  he  discovers  that  Falkland  once  murdered  a  man. 
The  ambition  of  Falkland's  life  had  been  to  possess  the  honor 
and  esteem  of  mankind,  and  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  ac- 


26  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

knowledge  a  crime  committed  in  madness;  he  even  allowed 
innocent  men  to  suffer  in  his  place.  Up  to  this  point  in  the 
story  the  author  presents  Falkland's  character  with  so  much 
sympathy,  and  so  much  justifying  detail,  that  he  rouses  no 
harder  feeling  than  pity,  and  the  too  curious  Williams,  who 
has  violated  his  master's  privacy,  seems  little  better  than  a 
sneak.  From  this  moment,  however,  the  story  reverses  the 
situation  of  the  characters. 

Falkland  confesses  his  crime  to  Williams,  and  binds  him 
to  secrecy  with  a  terrible  oath.  But  service  to  a  confessed 
murderer  becomes  so  unendurable  to  the  youth  that  he  tries 
to  run  away,  and  finds  to  his  horror  that  he  cannot;  Falk 
land's  emissaries  hunt  him  down,  spy  upon  him,  keep  him  in 
prison  or  out  of  it,  as  they  choose,  until  the  wretched  victim 
realizes  that  he  is  captive  for  life  to  the  fears  of  his  relentless 
master.  The  story  must  be  read  before  one  can  appreciate 
the  art  by  which  Falkland  is  changed  from  an  unfortunate 
recluse  to  a  persecuting  fiend,  and  Williams  from  an  un 
scrupulous  sneak  to  a  pitiable  victim  of  tyranny.  The  end  of 
the  story  is  masterly;  Williams  in  desperation  has  his  enemy 
haled  into  court,  and  breaking  the  oath  of  secrecy,  accuses 
him  of  the  murder;  but  the  sight  of  Falkland,  wasted  with 
illness  and  a  troubled  conscience,  brings  back  the  old  love  of 
the  man,  and  he  wishes  he  had  endured  the  persecution  in 
silence.  The  effect  of  this  scene  is  to  remind  us  that  we  have 
been  judging  Falkland  through  Williams'  imagination;  when 
we  see  the  unhappy  murderer,  we  remember  that  he  too  has 
been  persecuted.  Falkland  is  therefore  the  model  of  the 
lovable  villains  in  Brockden  Brown,  and  he  and  Williams 
both  illustrate  the  romantic  loneliness  which  is  the  fatal  prod 
uct  of  a  characteristic — Falkland  being  exiled  from  society 
by  his  desire  for  honorable  fame,  and  Williams  by  insatiable 
curiosity. 

The  interest  of  the  story  is  twofold.    In  the  first  part  God- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         27 

win  shows  himself  a  master  of  that  sort  of  psychological 
penetration  that  Brockden  Brown  emulated.  We  see  with 
complete  conviction  just  how  Falkland  came  to  be  what  he 
is;  and  though  our  attention  is  away  from  it  at  the  moment, 
the  persecution  of  Williams  is  prepared  for  and  made  a 
matter  of  absolute  logic.  In  the  second  part  the  wanderings 
of  the  young  servant  afford  opportunity  for  a  realistic  portrait 
of  society;  life  on  the  highway  and  in  the  city,  in  the  taverns 
and  the  prisons,  is  described  with  qualities  of  truth  that 
Brockden  Brown  never  commanded.  From  this  part  of  the 
story  comes  the  convincing  power  of  Caleb  Williams,  and 
where  Brown's  work  makes  a  feeble  appeal  the  fault  is  chiefly 
in  his  disregard  of  external  verities.  Whether  or  not  the  story 
of  Caleb  Williams  could  happen  in  England  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  we  see,  while  we  read  it,  that  it  did  hap 
pen. 

Arthur  Mervyn,  or  Memoirs  0}  the  Year  1793,  another  novel 
published  in  1799,  is  the  closest  imitation  Brown  made  of 
Caleb  Williams.  The  book  had  first  appeared  in  the  Weekly 
Magazine.  It  is  remembered  chiefly  for  its  description  of  the 
yellow  fever  epidemic  in  Philadelphia,  in  1793,  which  the 
author's  family  had  happily  escaped.  In  1798,  however, 
Brown  saw  the  same  pestilence  at  close  range  in  New  York, 
where  he  ran  great  danger  himself,  and  where  his  friend  Smith 
lost  his  life  in  an  attempt  to  save  a  stricken  foreigner,  whom 
he  took  into  his  home.  Some  hint  of  Brown's  temperament 
is  in  his  letters  to  his  brother  describing  the  epidemic  day  by 
day.  The  account  reads  like  a  section  from  one  of  his  books 
— no  less  unhappy,  no  less  composed.  Tragedy  was  his  ele 
ment.  But  this  experience  equipped  him  for  his  one  ac 
complishment  in  realism.  In  the  beginning  of  Ormond  he 
drew  a  brief  picture  of  yellow  fever  horrors;  in  Arthur  Meruyn 
he  drew  the  same  picture  at  length. 

The  resemblances  of  the  plot  to  Caleb  Williams  are  at  once 


28  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

obvious.  Arthur  Mervyn,  a  country  youth,  comes  to  Phila 
delphia  to  seek  his  fortune;  his  father's  second  marriage  drove 
him  from  home.  Rendered  destitute  by  some  surprising  ad 
ventures  in  the  city,  he  is  rescued  by  a  philanthropic  man 
named  Welbeck,  who  with  his  daughter  lives  in  a  lonely  but 
sumptuously  furnished  home;  evidently  his  wealth  is  great. 
He  takes  Mervyn  into  his  service  as  a  kind  of  secretary,  but 
gives  him  little  to  do,  and  in  his  leisure  Mervyn  studies  his 
employer's  many  peculiarities.  His  curiosity  is  aroused  by 
the  promise  Welbeck  demanded,  never  to  speak  of  his  own 
history  to  anyone  he  might  meet.  Of  Welbeck's  history  he 
knows  nothing.  His  distrust  of  Welbeck  increases  until  one 
day  he  hears  a  pistol-shot  in  an  adjoining  room,  rushes  in,  and 
finds  Welbeck  standing  over  the  man  he  has  murdered.  The 
scene  corresponds  to  Caleb  Williams'  discovery  of  Falkland, 
and  is  followed  by  a  similar  confession.  Love  of  money  is 
Welbeck's  passion,  as  desire  of  public  honor  was  Falkland's. 
Welback  has  committed  forgery,  and  murdered  the  man  who 
would  expose  him;  the  young  girl  in  his  house  is  not  his  daugh 
ter  but  his  mistress,  whose  estate  he  has  stolen,  and  whom  he 
keeps  in  seclusion  to  prevent  her  from  knowing  the  truth. 
This  disclosure  would  seem  to  put  Welbeck  in  Mervyn's 
power,  but  as  in  Godwin's  story,  the  inquisitive  young  man 
finds  himself  in  his  employer's  toils.  From  that  moment  his 
adventures  are  so  complicated  that  Brown  adds  a  second  and 
inferior  instalment  of  the  story,  to  gather  up  the  threads. 

Here  we  have  once  more  Godwin's  attractive  villain  and 
victimized  servant.  Welbeck  is  less  admirable  than  Falk 
land, — partly,  it  has  been  suggested,  because  his  ambition  is 
more  sordid,  and  partly  because  we  have  to  take  the  author's 
word  for  any  charm  he  possesses.  Godwin  exhibits  Falkland 
actually  living  an  honorable  and  kindly  life,  but  Welbeck 
takes  Mervyn  into  his  house  merely  in  order  to  work  out  his 
plots,  and  his  treatment  of  the  heiress,  Mile.  Lodi,  is  infa- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         29 

mous;  and  lastly,  Welbeck  is  never  altogether  frank,  as  Falk 
land  is.  Mervyn  is  intended  to  be  far  more  admirable  than 
Caleb  Williams.  His  leaving  home  illustrates  his  high  spirit, 
and  the  illness  through  which  he  enters  the  story,  during  the 
epidemic,  gives  him  a  claim  at  once  on  the  reader's  pity.  He 
is  less  effective,  however,  than  Caleb  Williams;  he  is  guilty  of 
the  same  prying  curiosity,  to  cover  which  he  tells  small  lies, 
and  throughout  the  book  he  lacks  initiative. 

The  story  is  full  of  admirable  situations,  none  of  which 
are  developed.  The  fact  that  Brown  was  writing  four  other 
novels  at  the  same  time  indicates  both  the  natural  richness  of 
his  genius,  and  his  lack  of  thoroughness.  Mervyn's  first  ad 
venture,  in  which  he  is  shut  up  at  midnight  in  a  stranger's 
bedroom,  suggests  developments  that  would  have  done  credit 
to  a  Stevenson,  but  it  is  sufficient  for  Brown  to  let  his  hero 
take  off  his  shoes  and  go  quietly  to  the  locked  door,  which  is 
not  locked  after  all,  and  so  make  his  escape  to  the  street, 
stupidly  leaving  his  shoes  behind,  for  the  surprise  of  the 
householder  the  next  morning. 

The  power  of  the  book,  as  has  been  said,  is  in  its  realistic 
account  of  the  yellow  fever  epidemic.  Brown  had  not  the  art 
to  make  his  realism  support  the  rest  of  the  story;  therefore 
Mervyn's  fortunes  in  Welbeck's  house  are  not  a  whit  more 
convincing  because  of  the  pestilence,  and  the  realism  stands 
apart  from  the  main  plot.  The  introductory  episode,  in 
which  the  invalid  Mervyn  is  taken  into  the  home  of  the  narra 
tor,  is  based  on  Dr.  Smith's  similar  and  fatal  generosity  to 
the  Italian  Scandella,  and  those  first  pages  of  the  book,  though 
they  are  not  usually  praised,  might  well  be  so  for  their  quiet 
record  of  natural  and  kindly  manners.  Two  passages  will 
illustrate  Brown's  skill  in  horror — one,  a  sketch  of  a  burying 
party  that  echoes  Defoe's  Journal  0}  the  Plague  Year;  the 
other,  a  Hogarth  drawing  of  the  fever  hospital,  unforgettably 
terrible. 


30  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

"I  met  not  more  than  a  dozen  figures,  and  these  were 
ghost-like,  wrapt  in  cloaks,  from  behind  which  they  cast  upon 
me  glances  of  wonder  and  suspicion;  and,  as  I  approached, 
changed  their  course,  to  avoid  touching  me.  Their  clothes 
were  sprinkled  with  vinegar;  and  their  nostrils  defended  from 
contagion  by  some  powerful  perfume.  .  .  .  Death  seemed  to 
hover  over  this  scene,  and  I  dreaded  that  the  floating  pesti 
lence  had  already  lighted  on  my  frame.  I  had  scarcely  over 
come  these  tremors,  when  I  approached  a  house,  the  door  of 
which  was  opened,  and  before  which  stood  a  vehicle,  which  I 
presently  recognized  to  be  a  hearse. 

"The  driver  was  seated  in  it.  I  stood  still  to  mark  his  vis 
age,  and  to  observe  the  course  which  he  proposed  to  take. 
Presently  a  coffin,  borne  by  two  men,  issued  from  the  house. 
The  driver  was  a  negro,  but  his  companions  were  white. 
Their  features  were  marked  by  a  ferocious  indifference  to 
danger  or  pity.  One  of  them  as  he  assisted  in  thrusting  the 
coffin  into  the  cavity  provided  for  it,  said,  '  I'll  be  damned  if  I 
think  the  poor  dog  was  quite  dead.  It  wasn't  the  fever  that 
killed  him,  but  the  sight  of  the  girl  and  her  mother  on  the 
floor.  I  wonder  how  they  all  got  into  that  room.  What 
carried  them  there  ? ' 

"The  other  surlily  muttered, '  Their  legs  to  be  sure.' 

"But  what  should  they  hug  together  in  one  room  for? 

"  '  To  save  us  trouble  to  be  sure.' 

"And  I  thank  them  with  all  my  heart;  but  damn  it,  it 
wasn't  right  to  put  him  in  his  coffin  before  the  breath  was 
fairly  gone.  I  thought  the  last  look  he  gave  me,  told  me  to 
stay  a  few  minutes. 

"Pshaw!  He  could  not  live.  The  sooner  dead  the  better 
for  him;  as  well  as  for  us.  Did  you  mark  how  he  eyed  us, 
when  we  carried  away  his  wife  and  daughter  ?  I  never  cried 
in  my  life,  since  I  was  knee-high,  but  curse  me  if  I  ever  felt 
in  better  tune  for  the  business  than  just  then.  *  Hey! 'con 
tinued  he,  looking  up,  and  observing  me  standing  a  few  paces 
distant,  and  listening  to  their  discourse,  'what's  wanted? 
Anybody  dead?'" 

"I  lay  upon  a  mattress,  whose  condition  proved  that  a 
half-decayed  corpse  had  recently  been  dragged  from  it.  The 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         31 

room  was  large,  but  it  was  covered  with  beds  like  my  own. 
Between  each,  there  was  scarcely  the  interval  of  three  feet. 
Each  sustained  a  wretch,  whose  groans  and  distortions  be 
spoke  the  desperateness  of  his  condition. 

"The  atmosphere  was  loaded  with  mortal  stenches.  A 
vapor,  suffocating  and  malignant,  scarcely  allowed  me  to 
breathe.  No  suitable  receptacle  was  provided  for  the  evacua 
tions  produced  by  medicine  or  disease.  My  nearest  neighbor 
was  struggling  with  death,  and  my  bed,  casually  extended, 
was  moist  with  the  detestable  matter  which  poured  from  his 
stomach. 

"  You  will  scarcely  believe  that,  in  this  scene  of  horrors,  the 
sound  of  laughter  should  be  overheard.  While  the  upper 
rooms  of  this  building  are  filled  with  the  sick  and  the  dying, 
the  lower  apartments  are  the  scene  of  carousals  and  mirth. 
The  wretches  who  are  hired,  at  enormous  wages,  to  tend  the 
sick  and  convey  away  the  dead,  neglect  their  duty  and  con 
sume  the  cordials,  which  are  provided  for  the  patients,  in  de 
bauchery  and  riot. 

"  A  female  visage,  bloated  with  malignity  and  drunkenness, 
occasionally  looked  in.  Dying  eyes  were  cast  upon  her,  in 
voking  the  boon,  perhaps,  of  a  drop  of  cold  water,  or  her  as 
sistance  to  change  a  posture  which  compelled  him  to  behold 
the  ghastly  writhings  or  deathful  smile  of  his  neighbor. 

"The  visitant  had  left  the  banquet  for  a  moment,  only  to 
see  who  was  dead.  If  she  entered  the  room,  blinking  eyes 
and  reeling  steps  showed  her  to  be  totally  unqualified  for 
ministering  the  aid  that  was  needed.  Presently  she  disap 
peared  and  others  ascended  the  staircase,  a  coffin  was  de 
posited  at  the  door,  the  wretch,  whose  heart  still  quivered, 
was  seized  by  rude  hands,  and  dragged  along  the  floor  into  the 
passage." 

VII 

The  year  1799  must  have  been  a  crowded  time  for  Brock- 
den  Brown.  Of  the  five  novels  he  was  working  on,  three  ap 
peared  in  that  year.  In  June  he  did  some  traveling  in  Con 
necticut — an  experience  nearly  as  adventurous  then  as  a  trip 
to  California  now.  He  kept  a  note-book  of  the  journey,  to 


32  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

have,  as  he  said,  a  scheme  for  preserving  his  impressions  in  a 
way  that  might  serve  a  public  and  private  purpose, — adding, 
that  Connecticut  had  never  been  described,  and  surely  it 
merited  a  description.  Two  months  earlier  he  had  published 
the  first  number  of  The  Monthly  Magazine  and  American 
Review,  which  ran  for  little  over  a  year.  The  incomplete 
Memoirs  of  Stephen  Calvert  appeared  in  its  pages,  and  part  of 
Edgar  Huntly;  and  the  magazine  shows,  as  might  be  expected, 
interest  in  the  German  literature  which  was  influencing  the 
romantic  school  from  which  Brown  derived. 

Edgar  Huntly,  or  Memoirs  of  a  Sleep-Walker,  was  the  third 
novel  to  appear  in  this  prolific  year.  The  importance  of  this 
story  is  not  perhaps  greater  than  of  some  of  the  others,  but  it 
will  receive  more  consideration  because  in  it  the  American 
Indian  begins,  not  unworthily,  his  career  in  our  fiction;  in 
part  at  least  this  is  a  border  tale  of  adventure.  The  obsession 
which  creates  the  mystery  of  the  story  is  here  sleep-walking, 
as  the  title  implies;  obviously  the  problems  of  the  plot  will  be 
physical  instead  of  psychological.  Although  this  change 
takes  Brockden  Brown  out  of  a  field  in  which  he  had  special 
interest,  it  is  on  the  whole  of  advantage  to  the  story.  Even 
so,  the  plot  breaks  in  the  middle  like  most  of  Brown's  work, 
following  the  example  of  Caleb  Williams,  but  it  would  have 
been  an  outrageous  insult  to  congruity  if  a  psychological  story 
had  preceded  the  crude  melodrama  of  the  Indian  adventures. 
Brown  could  always  invent  incident,  though  he  was  careless 
in  working  out  his  situations.  He  had  the  necessary  ingenu 
ity,  though  neither  the  poetry  nor  the  art,  to  have  been  a  true 
predecessor  of  Cooper,  and  whatever  faults  this  novel  has,  it 
is  not  dull. 

Edgar  Huntly  is  a  young  native  of  the  Pennsylvania  fron 
tier,  who  one  night  finds  a  friend  murdered  beneath  a  certain 
elm  tree.  His  suspicions  are  accordingly  directed  to  a  strange 
creature  named  Clithero,  whom  he  discovers  several  nights 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         33 

later  digging  under  the  same  tree.  When  he  approaches  the 
spot,  he  sees  that  Clithero,  for  all  his  labor,  is  asleep.  He  is 
convinced  that  Clithero  murdered  the  friend — that  his  con 
science  brings  him  in  his  dreams  to  the  place  of  his  crime. 
This  opening  scene  is  one  of  Brown's  best  strokes  of  crafts 
manship;  the  situation  is  in  itself  striking,  and  the  attention 
is  diverted  from  the  plausibility  of  the  sleep-walking  to  the 
murder  problem. 

Huntly  demands  an  explanation  of  Clithero,  who — in  a 
typical  confession  scene — tells  of  a  murder  he  once  committed 
in  self-defense,  long  ago,  which  wrecked  his  life  and  preys 
still  upon  his  reason.  This  explanation  naturally  does  not 
account  for  his  somnambulistic  performance  under  that  par 
ticular  elm,  and  as  he  will  tell  nothing  more,  Huntly  gives  up 
his  inquiries  for  the  time.  Clithero  immediately  takes  to  a 
wild  cavern  on  the  edge  of  the  wilderness  and  hides;  Huntly 
finds  him  evidently  in  a  kind  of  insanity  endeavoring  to  starve 
himself  to  death.  Huntly 's  visits  to  him,  for  the  purpose  of 
saving  him  from  self-destruction,  are  varied  by  encounters, 
more  or  less  heroic,  with  mountain  lions. 

At  this  point  the  story  turns  in  a  new  direction.  One  night 
Huntly  awakes  in  agony,  to  find  himself  at  the  bottom  of  a 
cavern,  open  apparently  only  to  the  sky.  Though  the  reader 
has  not  suspected  it,  he  too,  for  the  purpose  of  this  predica 
ment,  is  a  sleep-walker,  and  has  tumbled  down  the  cavern 
while  searching  in  his  dreams  for  more  mountain  lions.  For 
tunately  he  has  brought  along  in  his  sleep,  and  despite  his 
fall  still  holds,  the  tomahawk  that  had  been  his  defense 
against  the  panthers.  In  his  attempts  to  get  out  of  the  cavern 
he  finds  a  passage  into  a  cave,  which  in  turn  leads  up  to  level 
ground.  But  at  the  mouth  of  the  cave  he  finds  three  Indians 
sleeping.  Near  them  is  a  beautiful  girl,  bound  captive,  and 
just  outside  the  cave  a  fourth  Indian  stands  guard.  Huntly 
glides  through  the  sleeping  group,  brains  the  sentinel  before 


34  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  alarm  can  be  given,  unbinds  the  girl,  and  carries  her  away 
without  waking  up  the  other  three  Indians.  In  the  fight  that 
follows  next  day,  when  the  Indians  pursue,  Huntly  kills  them 
all, — and  to  the  end  of  the  story  the  adventure  keeps  fairly 
well  up  to  that  pace.  At  the  very  last  the  author  cheats  the 
reader  out  of  what  little  curiosity  remains  over  from  the  first 
part  of  the  story,  by  explaining  that  Huntly 's  friend  had  been 
murdered  by  the  Indians,  and  Clithero  was  simply  a  lunatic. 

But  the  part  of  the  story  that  deals  with  the  Indians  is  still 
interesting,  even  after  Cooper  has  set  a  standard  for  the 
modern  reader.  How  new  the  picture  must  have  been,  be 
fore  Cooper's  time,  can  well  be  imagined.  Making  all  allow 
ance  for  the  melodramatic,  sometimes  juvenile,  developments 
of  the  plot,  the  Indians  in  it  are  drawn  with  dignity  and  con 
siderable  truth.  Brown  had  no  natural  love  of  the  frontier, 
nor  any  experience  of  it;  his  attitude  towards  the  red  man  is 
that  of  the  dweller  in  the  settlements,  who  sees  the  Indian 
only  occasionally,  when  he  comes  in  to  spend  his  money  or  to 
make  trouble;  it  is  somewhat  the  attitude  of  Cooper's  Pio 
neers.  There  is  no  attempt  to  idealize  the  savage  morally. 
He  is  shown  as  the  treacherous  and  wily  foe,  and  he  associ 
ates  himself  in  the  reader's  imagination  with  the  two  pan 
thers  that  had  wandered  in  from  the  wilderness  to  trouble  the 
farmers.  Yet  the  ferocity  and  mysterious  skill  of  the  Indian 
in  war,  like  the  agility  of  the  panther,  gains  a  sort  of  unmoral 
credit;  these  savage  raiders  have  the  keen  sight,  delicate  hear 
ing  and  sure  hand  that  rouses  admiration  for  Cooper's  In 
dians;  and  Brockden  Brown  is  careful  to  make  them  neither 
too  monstrous  nor  too  successful, — they  are  simply  half-tamed 
savages  who  break  into  murderous  revolt  and  are  put  down 
by  superior  civilization  and  order. 

Only  one  Indian  is  sufficiently  characterized  to  seem  an 
individual.  That  is  the  old  hag,  Deb,  or  Queen  Mab,  as  the 
white  people  call  her,  who  lives  on  public  bounty  and  be- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         35 

cause  of  fancied  grievances  instigates  her  people  to  the  raid. 
Her  realistic  portrait  seems  to  belong  to  a  modern  school- 
she  would  hardly  be  found  among  Cooper's  Indians;  we  sus 
pect  that  Brown  is  here — and  here  only — describing  the  sav 
age  from  observation.  She  originally  belonged,  he  says,  to 
the  tribe  of  Delawares,  or  Lenni-Lenape — the  tribe  of  which 
Uncas  was  the  last  chief. 

"The  village  inhabited  by  this  clan  was  built  upon  the 
ground  which  now  constitutes  my  uncle's  barn-yard  and 
orchard.  On  the  departure  of  her  countrymen,  this  female 
burnt  the  empty  wigwams  and  retired  into  the  fastnesses  of 
Norwalk.  She  selected  a  spot  suitable  for  an  Indian  dwell 
ing  and  a  small  plantation  of  maize,  and  in  which  she  was 
seldom  liable  to  interruption  and  intrusion. 

"Her  only  companions  were  three  dogs,  of  the  Indian  or 
wolf  species.  These  animals  differed  in  nothing  from  their 
kinsmen  of  the  forest,  but  in  their  attachment  and  obedience 
to  their  mistress.  She  governed  them  with  absolute  sway. 
They  were  her  servants  and  protectors,  and  attended  her 
person  or  guarded  her  threshold,  agreeable  to  her  directions. 
She  fed  them  with  corn  and  they  supplied  her  and  themselves 
with  meat,  by  hunting  squirrels,  raccoons,  and  rabbits.  .  .  . 

"The  chief  employment  of  this  woman,  when  at  home,  be 
sides  plucking  the  weeds  from  among  her  corn,  bruising  the 
grain  between  two  stones,  and  setting  her  snares  for  rabbits 
and  possums,  was  to  talk.  Though  in  solitude,  her  tongue 
was  never  at  rest  but  when  she  was  asleep;  but  her  conversa 
tion  was  merely  addressed  to  her  dogs.  Her  voice  was  sharp 
and  shrill,  and  her  gesticulations  were  vehement  and  gro 
tesque.  A  hearer  would  naturally  imagine  that  she  was 
scolding;  but,  in  truth,  she  was  merely  giving  them  directions. 
Having  no  other  object  of  contemplation  or  subject  of  dis 
course,  she  always  found,  in  their  posture  and  looks,  occasion 
for  praise,  or  blame,  or  command.  The  readiness  with  which 
they  understood,  and  the  docility  with  which  they  obeyed  her 
movements  and  words,  were  truly  wonderful.  .  .  . 

"She  seldom  left  the  hut  but  to  visit  the  neighboring  in 
habitants,  and  demand  from  them  food  and  clothing,  or 


36  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

whatever  her  necessities  required.  These  were  exacted  as  her 
due;  to  have  her  wants  supplied  was  her  prerogative,  and  to 
withhold  what  she  claimed  was  rebellion.  She  conceived 
that  by  remaining  behind  her  countrymen  she  succeeded  to 
the  government,  and  retained  the  possession  of  all  this  region. 
The  English  were  aliens  and  sojourners,  who  occupied  the 
land  merely  by  her  connivance  and  permission,  and  whom  she 
allowed  to  remain  on  no  terms  but  those  of  supplying  her 
wants." 

Queen  Mab  is  the  only  personality  in  this  book,  and  a  rea 
sonable  claim  might  be  made  that  she  is  the  only  original 
character  in  all  Brockden  Brown's  writing.  His  important 
work  ends  with  Edgar  Huntly,  and  when  we  look  back  upon 
the  sum  of  his  most  representative  writing,  we  see  that  his 
limitations  in  the  creation  of  character  as  well  as  of  plot,  are 
great.  He  is  never  at  a  loss  for  an  incident,  and  he  can  intro 
duce  any  number  of  lay  figures  to  fill  his  stage,  but  his  hasty 
methods  of  composition  were  fatal  to  any  structural  develop 
ment  of  plot,  and  curiously  enough,  with  his  great  interest  in 
psychology  he  pays  little  attention  to  character.  In  the  case 
of  his  amiable  villains,  his  charitable  faith  in  humanity  sur 
rounds  the  hero  for  the  time  being  in  an  atmosphere  of  sym 
pathy,  but  when  the  book  is  laid  aside,  Ormond  and  Welbeck 
and  Carwin  fade  into  an  unmoral  bloodlessness,  that  seems 
more  vital  only  in  the  course  of  the  unusual  incidents.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  imagine  a  character  of  Brockden  Brown's 
as  having  further  experiences  after  the  book  ends,  though 
that  is  the  simplest  test  of  convincing  character  drawing. 
The  motives,  even  of  the  villians,  are  weak  or  insufficiently 
stated, — which  may  explain  why  they  pale  in  the  memory. 
Carwin  has  no  reason  for  his  crimes,  Ormond  an  inadequate 
one,  and  Welbeck  is  such  a  mixture  of  shrewdness  and  folly, 
and  such  a  liar  to  boot,  that  we  are  inclined  to  give  him  up  as 
the  author  gives  up  Clithero,  for  a  lunatic. 

But  though  these  characters  are  frequently  not  characters 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         37 

at  all — mere  lay  figures,  yet  that  they  appeal  to  the  imagina 
tion,  in  certain  moods  more  common  a  hundred  years  ago,  is 
not  to  be  denied.  The  art  of  the  Gothic  romance  at  its  best 
was  essentially  mechanical  and  scenic — the  art  of  the  theater. 
Stage,  action,  dialogue,  character,  all  were  represented  in  the 
rough,  as  so  many  stimuli  of  the  audience's  imagination;  if 
you  lost  yourself  in  the  tinsel  and  glare,  you  saw  truth  before 
you,  but  if  you  could  not  so  lose  yourself,  you  saw  only  the 
tinsel  and  glare.  We  have  been  sophisticated  into  a  closer 
habit  of  scrutiny  nowadays.  The  brook  that  tumbles  its 
cascade  toward  the  footlights  must  flow  with  real  water,  and 
the  players  who  impersonate  a  family  are  chosen  for  resem 
blances  of  complexion  or  profile,  so  that  the  sluggish  imag 
ination  of  the  house  will  not  be  overtaxed.  Even  Scott,  our 
beloved  romancer,  now  fails  to  create  for  many  readers  the 
old  illusion  of  enchanted  truth.  Di  Vernon  poses  on  horse 
back  before  them,  and  the  pose  to  them  means  nothing.  If 
such  a  fate  has  overtaken  Sir  Walter,  we  need  not  be  too  hard 
on  the  achievements  of  the  thinner-talented  Philadelphia 
youth.  An  unjaded  imagination  can  still  fill  out  his  theat 
rical  hints,  and  for  others  less  fortunate  Queen  Mab  is  a  com 
forting  promise  of  the  modern  photograph. 

Wieland  is  the  most  typical  of  Brown's  characters  largely 
because  he  has  so  little  character.  We  watch  his  actions  and 
his  psychological  states  as  they  are  induced  by  Carwin's 
trickery;  the  process  has  its  fascination,  and  it  seems  true;  the 
deluded  wretch,  passing  from  too  sensitive  religiosity  to  mur 
derous  insanity,  is  an  advance  study  of  those  mental  transi 
tions  which  Hawthorne  was  to  trace  so  marvelously.  But 
Hawthorne  would  have  made  Wieland  a  responsible  charac 
ter;  he  would  have  made  the  transitions  result  from  resolves 
and  actions,  as  in  the  changed  nature  of  Roger  Chillingworth. 
For  Brockden  Brown's  purposes  it  makes  no  difference 
whether  Wieland  is  morally  good  or  bad,  and  in  this  separa- 


38  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

tion  of  psychological  and  moral  interests  in  character  lies  his 
resemblance  to  Poe  and  his  difference  from  Hawthorne. 

Brown  never  grasped  the  principle  that  character  can  be, 
or  should  be,  exhibited  by  action.  A  less  dramatic  mind  than 
his  could  hardly  be  imagined.  Even  in  those  actions  which 
are  intended  to  be  admirable,  where  the  actor  is  intended  to 
have  our  praise,  the  author  fails  to  make  the  proper  connec 
tion  between  the  act  and  the  character.  In  Edgar  Huntly, 
where  the  hero  is  enabled  to  kill  the  three  Indians  and  save 
the  girl,  Cooper  would  have  made  the  incident  the  direct  re 
sult  of  character  in  Leatherstocking,  or  whoever  it  might 
have  been;  we  should  have  had  just  one  more  illustration  of 
his  skill  or  courage,  or  some  other  virtue.  As  Brown  tells  it 
Huntly  accomplished  the  rescue  by  sheer  luck;  he  needs  a 
freshly  loaded  gun  for  each  Indian,  and  the  author  ingen 
iously  puts  a  weapon  into  his  hand  whenever  he  needs  one. 
We  admire  the  author's  foresight,  not  Huntly's.  And  when 
the  book  is  closed,  the  scene,  so  far  as  Huntly  is  concerned,  is 
distasteful;  it  seems  far  from  an  admirable  thing  to  stand 
outside  a  door  with  a  sufficient  supply  of  loaded  guns,  and 
shoot  down  Indians  as  they  come  out. 

VIII 

In  July,  1801,  Brown  started  on  a  somewhat  extended  trip 
through  New  York,  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut.  As  was 
usual  with  him,  the  journey  was  recorded  and  commented 
upon  in  his  diary  and  letters.  Though  his  note-books  are  not 
to  be  compared  with  Hawthorne's  so  far  as  literary  quality  or 
observation  are  concerned,  yet  they  do  one  good  service  for 
Brown,  as  Hawthorne's  do  for  him — they  readjust  our  notion 
of  his  personality  after  we  have  been  living  in  the  atmosphere 
of  his  romances.  He  was  not  in  general  a  good  observer,  but 
as  he  grew  older  he  acquired  a  journalist's  rather  than  a  phi 
losopher's  alertness  for  material;  the  moralizing  lessens,  and 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         39 

the  world  he  moved  in  enters  the  journal  in  matter-of-fact 
items.  We  are  reminded  that  Brockden  Brown  was  after  all 
only  a  young  man,  handicapped  by  his  precocity,  and  the 
change  in  the  note-book  is  the  welcome  sign  of  experience  and 
increasing  poise.  As  he  remarks  at  the  beginning  of  this 
journey,  he  had  been  in  New  York  only  three  or  four  years, — 
a  small  space  into  which  to  crowd  so  much  work  and  suffer 
ing  and  pleasure  as  had  been  his, — and  this  had  been  his  only 
education  in  the  broadest  sense.  He  had  come  to  the  city  a 
provincial  young  pedant;  already  he  was  a  reputable  man  of 
letters,  an  honored  citizen,  the  first  American  novelist. 

The  journey  began  with  a  voyage  up  the  Hudson,  which 
Brown  had  never  explored  further  than  ten  miles  above  New 
York.  He  was  curious  to  see  the  Highlands  and  the  "  Kaats- 
Kill  Mountains,"  which  he  described  as  of  "stupendous'* 
height;  their  elevation  had  already  been  ascertained,  he  says, 
but  he  does  not  recollect  what  it  is.  When  the  tide  was 
against  them,  the  passengers  made  excursions  along  the  shore 
and  bathed  in  the  river.  With  a  favoring  tide,  he  goes  on, 
"we  left  Red-hook  at  eight  o'clock,  but  were  obliged  to  an 
chor  again  before  morning.  At  six  o'clock  my  friend  and  I 
accompanied  the  captain  ashore,  in  search  of  milk  and  black 
berries.  I  have  since  seated  myself  on  deck,  watching  the 
shore,  as  the  breeze  carried  us  slowly  along.  My  friend  is 
busy  with  his  spyglass,  reconnoitering  the  rocks  and  hay 
stacks,  and  surveying  the  wharves  and  store  houses  of  Lun- 
nenburg  and  Hudson,  villages  we  have  just  passed.  I  have 
observed  but  little  besides  a  steep  bank,  roughened  by  rocks 
and  bushes,  occasionally  yielding  to  slopes  of  a  parched  and 
yellowish  soil,  with  poor  cottages  sparingly  scattered,  and  now 
and  then  a  small  garden  or  field  of  corn.  A  fellow  passenger 
left  us  at  Hudson.  One  only  remaining,  a  Mr.  H—  -  of 
Albany,  a  well  behaved  man,  whose  attention  is  swallowed  up 
by  Mrs.  Bennet's  'Beggar  Girl.'  " 


40  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

The  captain's  library  consisted  of  a  book  on  navigation, 
one  on  arithmetic,  and  Goldsmith's  Citizen  of  the  World. 
This  last  was  evidently  new  to  Brown,  who  tried  to  read  it, 
for  want  of  something  to  pass  the  time,  but  found  he  did  not 
like  it;  the  fiction  is  ill-supported,  he  says,  "the  style  smooth 
and  elegant,  but  the  sentiments  and  observations  far  from 
judicious  or  profound." 

At  the  end  of  his  summer  trip  Brown  returned  to  Philadel 
phia,  which  in  this  year  had  once  more  become  his  home. 
For  a  while  he  lived  with  his  brother  Armit,  but  he  was  al 
ready  planning  for  a  household  of  his  own.  In  New  York  he 
had  met  the  family  of  Dr.  William  Linn,  a  Presbyterian 
minister.  John  Blair  Linn,  the  son,  who  became  one  of 
Brown's  best  friends,  was  like  his  father  a  minister,  and  had 
a  church  in  Philadelphia.  To  this  friend's  sister,  Elizabeth 
Linn,  Brown  became  engaged,  and  they  were  married  in  No 
vember,  1804. 

Had  Brown's  life  been  prolonged  the  influence  of  his  love 
affair  and  his  marriage  might  have  appeared  strongly  in  his 
work.  His  last  two  novels  were  occupied  with  studies  of 
feminine  character,  to  the  neglect  of  masculine  villains  and 
horrors,  and  his  other  writings  began  to  show  broad  human 
interests;  from  this  time  also  his  patriotism  is  seen  in  his 
concern  for  politics  and  for  America's  relations  with  Great 
Britain.  Before  he  met  Miss  Linn,  think  of  him  as  kindly  as 
we  may,  he  was  in  many  respects  a  prig,  and  what  he  did  not 
know  about  the  course  of  true  love  in  the  human  breast  was 
complete.  When  he  wrote  Alcuin  he  had  the  usual  contempt 
of  over-intellectual  young  men  for  any  but  intellectual  pas 
sions:  "I  know  that  love,  as  it  is  commonly  understood,  is  an 
empty  and  capricious  passion.  ...  To  thwart  it  is  often  to 
destroy  it,  and  sometimes  to  qualify  the  victim  of  the  delu 
sion  for  Bedlam.  In  the  majority  of  cases  it  is  nothing  but  a 
miserable  project  of  affectation.  The  languishing  and  sigh- 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN          41 

ing  lover  is  an  object  to  which  the  errors  of  mankind  have 
annexed  a  certain  degree  of  reverence."  Constantia  Dudley, 
in  Ormondj  and  the  frailer  ladies  in  the  same  story,  Hel 
ena  and  Martinette,  sufficiently  exhibit  in  different  ways 
Brown's  conscientious  ignorance  of  the  feminine  mind.  And 
shortly  before  his  betrothal  he  perpetrated  this  delicious  self- 
advertisement — "My  conceptions  of  the  delights  and  benefits 
connected  with  love  and  marriage,  are  exquisite.  They  have 
swayed  most  of  my  thoughts,  and  many  of  my  actions  since 
I  arrived  at  the  age  of  reflection  and  maturity.  They  have 
given  birth  to  the  sentiment  of  love,  with  regard  to  several 
women.  Mutual  circumstances  have  frustrated  the  natural 
operations  of  that  sentiment  in  several  instances.  At  present 
I  am  free." 

Brown's  changed  attitude  toward  life  is  evident  in  Clara 
Howard,  the  last  novel  he  wrote  in  New  York,  published  in 
1 80 1.  In  plot  this  story  much  resembles  Edgar  Huntly;  in 
both  books  a  brother  is  intrusted  with  money,  which  after 
his  death  his  sister  inherits,  supposing  it  to  be  a  legacy,  and 
then  an  embarrassing  claimant  of  it  appears.  And  in  both 
stories  the  benefactor  of  the  hero  is  an  Englishman,  who  has 
had  certain  stereotyped  adventures.  The  similarity  of  inci 
dents  partly  explains  the  speed  with  which  Brockden  Brown 
turned  out  his  group  of  novels,  bu&lara  Howard,  in  spite  6T~ 
that  similarity,  is  distinct  from  me  preceding  stories  and 
marks  the  author's  change  of  ideals.  The  plot  is  orderly  and 
for  the  most  part  clearly  worked  out.  The  chief  interest  is 
focused  on  the  characters  of  Clara  Howard  and  Mary  Wil- 
mot,  almost  equally  the  heroines.  Most  significant  is  the  new 
emphasis  on  character  rather  than  psychology;  the  experi 
ences  of  both  girls  are  moral  tests. 

Edward  Hartley  becomes  the  friend  of  Mary  Wilmot's 
brother,  and  through  this  friendship  he  comes  to  know  the 
sister,  who  falls  in  love  with  him.  Hartley's  affection  for  her 


42  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

is  no  more  than  friendship,  but  he  realizes  her  devotion  to 
him,  and  when  Mary's  brother  dies,  they  become  engaged. 
The  engagement  is  an  offhand  sort  of  provision  for  Mary's 
future.  Mary  then  lives  quietly  on  the  five  thousand  dollars 
she  has  discovered  in  her  brother's  possession  after  his  death, 
but  at  the  end  of  six  months  a  man  named  Morton  appears, 
who  says  that  he  left  the  money  in  Wilmot's  care.  At  about 
the  same  time  Mr.  Howard,  Hartley's  benefactor,  returns  to 
this  country  from  England,  where  he  has  married  a  widow, 
an  old  flame  of  his;  her  daughter,  Clara  Howard,  he  hopes 
will  be  Hartley's  wife. 

Mary  Wilmot,  learning  of  this  plan,  unselfishly  disappears, 
so  that  Hartley  will  be  free.  Hartley  and  Clara  fall  in  love 
promptly,  but  Hartley  feels  bound  to  tell  her  his  relations 
with  Mary  and  his  fear  for  her  fate.  Clara,  equally  mag 
nanimous,  gives  up  her  lover  and  insists  that  he  find  the  other 
woman.  The  situation  viewed  abstractly  is  rather  funny, 
as  Clara  against  her  own  wishes  drives  Hartley,  much  against 
his,  to  marry  Mary,  who  has  run  off  with  another  man.  But 
the  problem  is  real  in  the  book,  and  Mary  and  Clara  are  fine 
characters.  The  difficulties  are  solved  when  Mary  marries  a 
former  lover,  Sedley. 

This  novel  is  quite  lacking  in  those  highly  wrought  incidents 
that  give  Wieland  and  Arthur  Mervyn  their  fame;  it  is  not 
surprising  that  its  tameness  has  doomed  it  to  obscurity.  But 
it  proves  a  capacity  in  the  author  for  a  broadened,  normal 
point  of  view,  which  from  his  early  mental  habit  could  not 
have  been  expected.  The  plot  gives  him  occasion  also  to 
comment  on  the  differences  between  American  and  English 
social  ideals,  when  Hartley,  a  country  boy  of  humble  par 
ents,  finds  himself  in  love  with  the  well-born  Clara  Howard. 
Though  he  had  not  visited  England,  Brown's  comment  is 
thoughtful  and  just,  and  in  allowing  Hartley  to  marry  the 
English  girl  he  illustrates  consciously  the  triumph  of  those 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         43 

democratic  ideals  which,  he  says,  are  the  proud  distinction  ( 
between  this  country  and  Europe. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  in  such  characters  as  Mary  Wilmot 
and  Clara  Howard,  and  earlier  perhaps  in  Constantia  Dud 
ley,  Brown  was  portraying  a  new  type  of  heroine,  and  should 
have  the  credit  for  such  pioneer  work,  no  matter  how  crude 
it  was.  These  women  think  and  act  for  themselves,  with  all 
the  newly  discovered  consciousness  of  woman's  rights.  They 
are  not  portraits,  but  social  ideals,  the  concrete  development 
of  the  theories  in  Alcuin.  Too  much  credit  can  hardly  be 
given  to  the  author  who  conceived  of  this  now  common  type 
so  far  in  advance  of  its  general  acceptance.  So  early  an  ex 
ample  of  the  type  as  Diana  Vernon  was  not  to  appear  for 
nearly  twenty  years.  Scott,  and  Cooper  after  him,  were  in 
general  guided  by  eighteenth-century  standards  of  the  well- 
bred  heroine,  and  their  forceful  women,  like  Norna  in  The 
Pirate  or  Judith  Hutter  hi  The  Deerslayer,  are  exceptions, 
social  outcasts.  Brown  was  a  thinker  in  a  sense  that  Scott 
was  not,  and  being  less  sane  than  Cooper,  his  speculations 
were  more  adventurous  and  in  this  particular  more  modern. 
It  would  be  a  not  unprofitable  fancy  to  trace  the  variations  of 
type  from  Clara  Howard  or  Mary  Wilmot  through  Hester 
Prynne  to  Daisy  Miller;  not  even  so  fanciful  a  descent  can  be 
traced  from  Scott's  or  Cooper's  normal  heroines. 

In  October  of  1803  Brown  inaugurated  the  Literary  Maga 
zine  and  American  Register,  which  continued  for  five  years. 
The  pleasures  of  magazine  editing  were  not  great  in  those 
days,  as  Brown's  letters  show.  He  had  to  supply  most  of  the 
material  for  the  magazine  himself — in  one  case  writing  the 
whole  number,  with  the  exception  of  one  contribution.  The 
fragmentary  Memoirs  o]  Carwin  appeared  in  instalments 
until  the  busy  editor  could  not  find  leisure  to  continue  them. 
His  health  was  not  good  at  this  time,  partly  because  of  over 
work;  the  disease  which  was  to  end  his  life  either  brought 


44  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

about  his  invalid  condition,  or  was  encouraged  by  it.  The 
humor  of  an  unknown  correspondent  who  proposed  to  make 
himself  acceptable  to  his  political  party  by  publishing  in 
Brown's  periodical  an  invective  against  Adams  and  a  eulogy 
of  Jefferson,  would  hardly  offset  the  business  disappoint 
ments  and  embarrassments  the  editor  had  to  complain  of. 
How  precarious  any  such  venture  was,  may  be  gathered  from 
Brown's  letter  to  his  brother  Armit,  in  1798,  when  he  was 
planning  his  first  experiment,  the  Monthly  Magazine.  How 
often  again  were  American  authors  to  indulge  in  such  opti 
mistic  calculations!  "Four  hundred  subscribers  will  repay 
the  annual  expense  of  sixteen  hundred  dollars.  As  soon  as 
this  number  is  obtained,  the  printers  will  begin,  and  trust  to 
the  punctual  payment  of  these  for  reimbursement.  All  above 
four  hundred  will  be  clear  profit  for  me;  one  thousand  sub 
scribers  will  produce  four  thousand  five  hundred  dollars 
[sic],  and  deducting  the  annual  expense  will  leave  two  thou 
sand  seven  hundred  [sic].  If  this  sum  be  attainable,  in  a 
year  or  two  you  will  allow  that  my  prospect  is  consoling." 
If  this  reckoning  illustrates  Brown's  business  capacity,  per 
haps  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  first  magazine  failed,  and  the 
second  had  only  a  more  lingering  death.  It  is  somewhat 
puzzling  to  explain  how  Brown  supported  himself  at  all,  or 
could  think  of  supporting  a  family.  His  novels  brought  him 
reputation,  but  no  money;  in  one  of  his  letters  he  says  that  the 
best  an  American  author  can  hope  for  is  to  pay  expenses. 
That  he  expected  little  from  the  Literary  Magazine  is  inti 
mated  in  terms  more  magnanimous  than  calculated  to  cheer 
the  publisher,  John  Conrad,  who  financed  the  periodical  and 
paid  Brown  a  salary  for  editing  it;  "The  project  is  not  a  mer 
cenary  one,"  writes  the  editor.  "Nobody  relies  for  subsist 
ence  on  its  success,  nor  does  the  editor  put  anything  but  his 
reputation  at  stake.  At  the  same  time,  he  cannot  but  be  de 
sirous  of  an  ample  subscription,  not  merely  because  pecuniary 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         45 

profit  is  acceptable,  but  because  this  is  the  best  proof  which 
he  can  receive  that  his  endeavors  to  amuse  and  instruct  have 
not  been  unsuccessful." 

In  this  year,  1803,  Brown  published  a  political  pamphlet 
entitled,  An  Address  to  the  Government  of  The  United  States 
on  the  Cession  of  Louisiana  to  the  French;  and  on  the  Late 
Breach  of  Treaty  by  the  Spaniards:  including  a  translation  of  a 
memorial,  on  the  war  of  St.  Domingo  and  cession  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  to  France,  drawn  up  by  a  French  counsellor  of  state. 
The  essay  so  formidably  introduced  is  an  argument,  sup 
posed  to  be  drawn  from  a  French  document,  to  prove  that  the 
territory  of  Louisiana  was  an  invaluable  possession,  and 
Brown  pleaded  for  its  acquisition  by  the  United  States.  The 
pamphlet  is  a  return  to  the  debate  as  a  literary  form,  such  as 
Alcuin,  but  much  more  direct  and  mature  in  method.  A 
second  pamphlet,  The  British  Treaty,  begins  with  a  dis 
cussion  of  Great  Britain's  treatment  of  this  country  as  likely 
to  lead  to  war — especially  such  incidents  as  the  searching  of 
the  frigate  Chesapeake  in  1807.  Brown  then  proceeds  to  ex 
amine  in  detail  the  terms  of  the  treaty  of  1806.  His  third 
pamphlet,  in  1809,  dealt  with  the  embargo  placed  upon  com 
merce  with  foreign  ports,  under  the  ponderous  title,  Address 
to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  on  the  utility  and  justice 
of  restrictions  upon  foreign  commerce,  with  reflections  on 
Foreign  Trade  in  general,  and  the  future  prospects  of  America. 
After  expounding  with  considerable  power  the  ridiculous 
futility  of  trying  to  retaliate  for  the  French  and  English  em 
bargoes,  Brown  makes  an  excursion  that  does  more  justice  to 
his  patriotism  than  to  his  logic,  and  explains  how  desirable 
for  internal  commerce  the  embargo  would  be,  were  it  other 
wise  desirable  or  possible.  He  saw  the  necessity  of  building 
up  domestic  trade  and  manufactures,  and  then  uniting  all 
sections  of  the  country  economically.  Of  all  three  pamph 
lets  it  may  be  said  that  they  reflect  broad  patriotism  and  much 


46  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

economic  sense,  and  the  attitude  of  the  author  in  each  was  in 
accord  with  later  opinion. 

In  1804,  three  months  before  Brown's  marriage  with  Miss 
Linn,  occurred  the  death  of  her  brother  John  Blair  Linn,  then 
pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in  Philadelphia.  Dr. 
Linn  was  a  poet  in  a  harmless  way,  and  for  a  posthumous 
volume  of  his  verse  Brown  wrote  a  biographical  sketch. 

In  Brown's  last  novel,  Jane  Talbot,  published  in  England  in 
this  year,  William  Godwin's  influence  is  turned  to  peculiar  ac 
count;  it  is  charged  against  the  hero,  by  one  of  the  characters, 
that  he  is  a  disciple  of  Godwin,  and  the  charge  is  felt  to  be  a 
serious  one.  The  story  is  unworthy  of  its  author,  except  that 
it  is  coherent  and  quiet  in  Brown's  later  manner.  Golden, 
the  hero,  falls  in  love  with  Jane  Talbot,  an  adopted  child. 
Like  the  editor  of  the  Literary  Magazine,  Golden  has  no  mer 
cenary  ambitions, — in  fact,  he  is  so  high-minded  that  he  is 
hardly  willing  to  support  himself,  let  alone  a  wife.  He  and 
Jane  discuss  by  letter  the  problem  that  naturally  ensues;  after 
a  mysterious  disappearance,  which  almost  leads  Jane  to  marry 
someone  else,  Golden  returns,  and  with  untypical  prompt 
ness  marries  her  himself.  The  letters  which  form  the  greater 
part  of  the  book  are  intended  as  analyses  of  the  heart,  some 
what  in  Richardson's  way.  The  method  fits  well  with  Brown's 
gift  for  debate  and  discussion,  but  it  interrupts  the  flow  of 
what  narrative  there  is.  It  is  the  author  who  is  speaking  when 
Jane  says,  "I  have  always  found  an  unaccountable  pleasure 
in  dissecting,  as  it  were,  my  heart,  uncovering  one  by  one  its 
many  folds,  and  laying  it  before  you,  as  a  country  is  shown 
on  a  map." 

In  1806  Conrad,  the  publisher  of  the  Literary  Magazine, 
brought  out  the  first  annual  volume  of  The  American  Regis 
ter,  edited  by  Brown.  The  publication  had  considerable 
success,  and  it  stopped  only  with  the  editor's  death.  It  con 
tained  records  of  public  events  in  America  and  Europe,  of 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         47 

legislation,  of  the  advances  of  science,  and  a  review  of  literary 
publications.  During  this  time — for  the  last  years  of  his 
life — Brown  worked  on  a  geography,  curiously  enough  re 
verting  to  that  childhood  interest  which  had  mounted  him  on 
the  parlor  table.  The  book,  which  was  left  unfinished,  was 
promising  enough  to  make  his  friends  wish  to  publish  it  as  it 
was. 

For  some  time  Brockden  Brown's  friends  had  suspected 
that  he  was  a  victim  of  consumption.  His  temperament,  per 
haps  his  needs,  did  not  allow  him  leisure  for  rest  or  recrea 
tion  to  fight  the  disease,  and  his  constitution  was  always 
frail.  Having  the  traditional  optimism  of  consumptive  peo 
ple,  he  persisted  in  explaining  away  all  his  symptoms,  un 
til  his  condition  was  desperate.  He  was  persuaded  to  try  a 
sea  voyage,  and  determined  to  visit  his  brother  James  in 
England.  But  during  the  summer  of  1809  he  made  his  last 
journey,  a  visit  to  New  Jersey  and  New  York.  In  November 
he  was  unable  to  leave  his  bed,  and  on  February  22,  1810,  he 
died. 

In  person  Brown  was  tall  and  thin,  but  he  gave  the  im 
pression  of  much  more  strength  than  he  had.  His  hair  was 
black,  and  is  said  to  have  been  straight,  though  in  his  por 
trait  it  appears  to  be  wavy.  His  chin  was  weak, — in  fact, 
none  of  his  features  were  distinguished  except  his  large  and 
dreamy  eyes,  yet  those  who  saw  him  were  impressed  by  his 
remarkable  personality,  apparent  at  a  glance. 

IX 

He  was  only  thirty-nine  years  old  when  he  died.  If  it  is 
true  that  the  great  novels  are  all  written  after  forty,  we  may 
think  of  his  stories  as  'prentice  work,  and  speculate  on  the 
masterpiece  he  would  have  written  had  be  lived.  But  there 
is  no  good  reason  for  thinking  of  him  as  cut  off  in  his  promise, 
like  Keats  or  Shelley,  His  early  death  is  pathetic  for  o.ther 


48  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

reasons;  in  literature  there  is  no  cause  to  doubt  that  he  had 
said  his  say.  He  was  not  by  temperament  a  novelist ;  he  could 
neither  tell  a  vital,  coherent  narrative,  nor  draw  a  true  pic 
ture  of  manners.  That  he  wrote  stories  at  all  was  due  to  his 
need  of  a  medium  for  his  speculations  about  life,  and  as  God 
win  had  used  the  novel  effectively  to  attack  domestic  tyranny, 
it  was  easy  for  Brown  to  exploit  his  psychological  notions 
through  the  same  form. 

The  very  real  power  that  he  is  master  of  from  time  to  time 
cannot  be  denied;  his  fame  rests  on  it.  But  he  was  by  nature 
a  publicist,  and  story-telling  only  happened  to  be  among  his 
experiments.  For  that  very  reason,  perhaps,  he  is  a  typical 
figure  in  his  place  at  the  beginning  of  American  literature. 
Our  great  writers,  especially  in  prose,  have  been  public- 
spirited  before  they  were  artistic.  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  is  only 
one  brilliant  success  among  a  thousand  attempts  to  make  a 
reform  party  of  the  Muses.  It  is  to  his  credit  as  a  citizen  that 
Brown  probably  never  wrote  without  the  welfare  of  men,  es 
pecially  of  his  countrymen,  in  mind;  whatever  new  truth  he 
acquired,  he  made  feverish  haste  to  share  with  any  who  would 
read.  The  result  is  that  he  always  has  his  eye  on  the  reader 
whom  he  is  instructing;  he  rarely  loses  himself  in  the  story. 

He  is  also  prophetic  of  American  literature  in  his  readiness 
to  welcome  and  absorb  foreign  culture.  He  is  the  disciple  of 
Godwin,  as  he  would  have  been  of  Scott,  and  he  gave  as 
cordial  appreciation  to  the  German  and  Italian  literatures, 
though  his  education  did  not  admit  him  to  all  their  treasures. 
He  is  distinctly  himself,  as  Cooper  and  Emerson  in  their 
separate  ways  are  distinctly  themselves,  and  equally  Ameri 
can.  All  that  he  learned  from  other  lands  he  transmuted  into 
a  native  product,  as  he  transferred  the  Gothic  romance  to 
Philadelphia.  That  use  of  a  native  stage,  it  has  been  said, 
is  enough  to  earn  our  gratitude.  He  wrote  of  scenes  he  knew, 
and  his  tales  lose  no  power  by  the  setting. 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN         49 

He  showed  one  great  quality,  in  his  brief  literary  career; 
he  was  quick  to  learn.  In  the  preface  to  Wieland  he  had 
anticipated  criticisms  of  the  ventriloquism  and  spontaneous 
combustion — phenomena  not  generally  credible — by  re 
marking  that  "it  is  a  sufficient  vindication  of  the  writer,  if 
history  furnishes  one  parallel  fact."  A  mind  so  ignorant  of  art 
as  not  to  feel  instinctively  the  need  of  probability,  seldom  ac 
quires  the  principle.  But  in  a  letter  to  his  brother  James,  who 
appears  to  have  been  a  sound  and  persevering  critic,  he  wrote 
in  1800,  "Your  remarks  upon  the  gloominess  and  out-of- 
nature  incidents  of  Huntly,  if  they  be  not  just  in  their  full  ex 
tent,  are,  doubtless,  such  as  most  readers  will  make,  which 
alone  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  dropping  the  doleful  tone  and 
assuming  a  cheerful  one,  or,  at  least,  substituting  moral  causes 
and  daily  incidents  in  place  of  the  prodigious  and  singular. 
I  shall  not  fall  hereafter  into  that  strain." 

His  was  the  realism  of  the  journalist.  He  had  an  instinct 
for  head-lines,  with  the  gruesome  details  diagramed  and  il 
lustrated.  From  this  trait  came  his  general  inability  to  depict 
character.  We  find  his  art  described  by  its  opposite  in  the 
delightful  plea  Mr.  Howells  makes  for  his  beloved  realism, 
that  "character  resides  in  habit,"  and  that  "for  the  novelist 
to  seek  its  expression  in  violent  events  would  be  as  stupid  as 
for  the  painter  to  expect  an  alarm  of  fire  or  burglary  to  startle 
his  sitter  into  a  valuable  revelation  of  his  qualities." 

But  in  Brockden  Brown's  time  the  burglar  and  the  fire 
alarm  had  their  charms. 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 


COOPER  is  the  great  story-teller  of  American  literature.  He 
was  the  first  American  to  make  a  world-wide  appeal,  and  to 
this  day  he  is  one  of  the  few  who  have  taken  and  held  a  high 
rank  in  the  esteem  of  other  nations.  No  single  book  of  his  has 
had  the  universal  popularity  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin ,  but  on  the 
other  hand  that  novel  was  not  equaled  by  any  other  work  of 
its  author,  nor  was  its  success  due  entirely  to  its  value  as  a 
story;  whereas  the  Leatherstocking  Tales  belong  to  world 
literature,  and  owe  their  immortality  to  the  sheer  delight  they 
give.  Their  recognition  was  as  immediate  and  generous  as 
the  welcome  accorded  the  Waverley  Novels,  to  whose  author 
Cooper  is  often  compared.  Perhaps  the  highest  praise  the 
American  ever  received  was  from  the  author  of  Henry  Es 
mond,  who  knew  what  was  to  be  known  about  great  novels; 
in  the  Roundabout  Paper  entitled  "On  a  Peal  of  Bells" 
Thackeray  follows  a  description  of  Scott's  heroes  with  these 
words:  "Much  as  I  like  those  unassuming,  manly,  unpre 
tending  gentlemen,  I  have  to  own  that  I  think  the  heroes 
of  another  writer,  viz : — Leatherstocking,  Uncas,  Hardheart, 
Tom  Coffin,  are  quite  the  equals  of  Scott's  men;  perhaps 
Leatherstocking 'is  better  than  any  one  in  'Scott's  Lot.'  La 
Longue  Carabine  is  one  of  the  great  prizemen  of  fiction.  He 
ranks  with  your  Uncle  Toby,  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  Fal- 
staff — heroic  figures,  all — American  or  British,  and  the  artist 
has  deserved  well  of  his  country  who  devised  them." 

However  well  he  deserved,  Cooper  received  little  from  his 

51 


52  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

country  in  proportion  to  what  he  gave.  Partly  through  his 
own  fault,  his  career,  though  one  of  the  most  conspicuous, 
was  one  of  the  least  honored  in  our  literature.  And  since  his 
death,  when  the  common  judgment  of  his  personality  has 
become  kindlier,  types  of  fiction  more  subtle  than  the  story  of 
adventure  have  led  the  fashion,  and  Cooper's  novels  have 
been  in  some  measure  consigned  to  the  juvenile  department  of 
literature.  Although  the  best  criticism  has  lately  been  once 
more  appreciative  of  the  novelist  who  is  not  ashamed  to  tell 
an  out-and-out  story,  who  makes  pretension  to  neither  style 
nor  wickedness,  and  never  heard  of  the  psychological  or  socio 
logical  problem,  yet  the  admirer  of  Cooper,  like  the  admirer  of 
Scott,  has  still  something  of  a  case  to  prove;  he  has  still  a  plea 
to  make  for  that  old-fashioned  sanity  which  to  the  red-pepper 
palate  of  to-day  is  dullness;  he  must  still  set  up  the  claims  of  a 
great  imagination  over  against  modern  literary  dexterity;  and 
he  must  explain  why  the  public  honor  that  was  Cooper's  due 
was  turned  into  public  abuse, — why  even  to-day  his  greatness 
as  a  man  is  forgotten.  For  Cooper,  in  spite  of  his  faults,  was 
really  a  great  man.  He  stands  detached  from  his  books,  like 
Scott,  a  strong  personality.  He  was  one  of  the  least  provin 
cial  of  American  authors,  and  one  of  the  most  thoughtful,  if 
not  one  of  the  wisest,  of  American  citizens.  For  more  than 
literary  services  he  deserves  well  of  his  country. 

He  was  born  at  Burlington,  New  Jersey,  September  15, 
1789.  His  father,  Judge  William  Cooper,  came  of  a  Quaker 
family,  who  had  settled  in  New  Jersey  a  century  before;  his 
mother,  Elizabeth  Fenimore,  was  of  Swedish  descent.  There 
were  twelve  children,  of  whom  James  was  the  eleventh.  He 
got  his  middle  name  by  dropping  the  hyphen  in  Fenimore- 
Cooper,  the  form  to  which  the  family  name  was  changed  in 
1826,  by  act  of  legislature. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolution  the  elder  Cooper  bought  a 
large  estate  in  New  York,  on  the  shore  of  Otsego  Lake.  A 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  53 

year  before  the  novelist's  birth  he  laid  out  what  was  to  be  the 
village  of  Cooperstown,  and  two  years  later,  when  the  child 
was  thirteen  months  old,  the  family  removed  to  their  new 
home  in  the  wilderness.  It  was  from  his  father,  apparently, 
that  the  novelist  inherited  what  were  called  his  aristocratic 
tastes — his  admiration  for  the  manners  of  a  traditional  so 
ciety,  and  here  in  the  quickly  gathering  frontier  settlement 
those  tastes  were  strangely  fostered;  for  his  father  built  a  pre 
tentious  house,  and  made  himself,  with  considerable  success, 
as  it  were  the  lord  of  the  manor,  dispensing  hospitality  and 
exercising  a  superior  influence,  as  became  the  first  gentleman 
of  that  region.  The  son  passed  his  childhood  under  the  in 
fluence  of  such  a  home,  and  as  far  as  he  could  know,  under 
such  traditions.  It  would  seem  fitting  to  him  that  the  exiled 
Talleyrand  should  visit  his  father's  house;  it  would  be  natural 
in  later  years  for  the  famous  novelist  to  feel  at  home  in  the 
undemocratic  society  of  the  Old  World,  to  the  great  scandal 
of  his  fellow-countrymen. 

At  the  same  time  the  childhood  in  Cooperstown  developed 
in  him  that  love  of  democracy  which  seemed  to  his  enemies, 
considering  his  conservative  tastes,  paradoxical  if  not  in 
sincere.  The  little  settlement  contained  men  of  every  nation 
ality  and  condition,  but  alike  adventurous  and  hardy,  or  they 
would  not  have  been  there  at  all.  What  more  delicious  para 
dise  could  the  heart  of  boyhood  conceive,  than  this  fellow 
ship,  on  the  very  border  of  the  mysterious  forests,  with  hun 
ters  and  woodsmen  and  trappers!  The  necessary  roughness 
of  the  life  which  from  his  earliest  memory  he  saw  outside  his 
father's  house,  had  its  own  charm  for  one  who  was  by  tem 
perament  a  man  of  action,  and  it  developed  in  him  that  true 
valuing  of  the  elemental  in  human  nature  which  makes  the 
democrat.  Together  with  his  love  of  a  patrician  mode  of  life, 
such  as  the  North  could  rarely  boast  in  his  time,  went  always 
this  other  love  of  sturdy  manhood.  This  dual  interest  was 


54  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

paralleled  in  Scott's  life :  and  had  Cooper  but  enjoyed  also  Sir 
Walter's  genius  for  showing  brotherly  love  in  gracious  con 
duct,  he  might  to-day  be  similarly  honored  in  the  memory  of 
his  own  people. 

It  is  perhaps  to  be  regretted  that  there  is  no  record  of 
Cooper's  boyhood  beyond  what  little  he  himself  told,  and 
what  can  be  inferred  from  his  matured  character  and  his 
books.  Undoubtedly  the  subtlest  and  perhaps  the  strongest 
influence  of  those  years  was  nature,  as  it  lay  about  him. 
Those  particular  regions,  that  peculiarly  American  land 
scape,  took  hold  of  him  in  a  way  quite  unmatched  in  our  liter 
ature — perhaps  new  in  modern  literature.  If  we  had  the 
inner  record  of  his  childhood  we  might  find  that  he  was  as 
reflective  and  poetical  as  the  American  novelists  have  charac 
teristically  been.  He  had  a  poet's  eye  for  the  outward  world, 
unsupported  by  the  romance  of  human  interests,  and  therein 
he  differed  from  Scott.  Apart  from  the  moving  accident  by 
flood  and  field,  which  is  his  theme,  Cooper  paints  indelible 
memories  of  the  shadowy  forests,  the  infrequent  clearings, 
the  crystal  lake,  with  the  pines  and  the  heavens  clear  in  its 
bosom.  The  pictures  contain  no  other  mystery  than  their 
own  beauty;  Cooper  was  guilty  of  no  French  sentimentalism 
over  a  savage  world,  nor  was  he  in  the  slightest  degree,  as 
critics  have  pointed  out,  a  Wordsworthian.  He  looked  on  the 
wild  panorama  with  the  detachment  of  a  Greek,  but  in  place 
of  the  ancient  awe  he  felt  the  love  of  nature.  It  was  in  these 
scenes  of  his  boyhood  that  he  laid  his  greatest  stories,  be 
cause,  as  he  said,  he  loved  no  other  scenes  so  well. 

The  village  of  Cooperstown  boasted  a  school,  and  there  the 
future  novelist  had  his  introduction  to  learning.  But  the  ad 
vantages  of  frontier  scholarship  proved  limited,  and  he  was 
soon  sent  to  Albany,  as  a  private  pupil  of  the  rector  of  St. 
Peter's  Church.  In  this  gentleman's  household  he  first  came 
in  contact  with  those  contemptuous  English  opinions  of  Amer- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  55 

ica,  which  in  mature  life  roused  his  anger  against  the  mother 
country;  at  the  same  time  he  learned  from  his  English  tutor 
Old  World  ideals  of  an  established  society  and  a  traditional 
church,  which  fitted  well  with  his  patrician  tastes.  In  1802, 
on  the  death  of  his  teacher,  he  entered  the  class  of  1806,  in 
Yale  College.  He  was  then  thirteen  years  old.  His  residence 
at  Yale  lasted  somewhat  over  two  years.  What  little  instruc 
tion  the  college  could  impart  in  those  days,  he  managed  to 
avoid,  nor  did  he  find  an  equivalent  in  the  familiar  resort  of 
v/ayward  genius — wide  general  reading.  He  occupied  his 
active  mind  partly  with  the  enjoyment  of  nature,  and  more 
largely  with  mischief;  as  a  natural  result  he  was  dismissed 
from  college. 

It  has  often  been  observed,  justly,  that  Cooper — and  Amer 
ican  literature — suffered  severely  from  his  lack  of  systematic 
training.  His  was  a  nature  that  could  have  profited  from 
mental  discipline,  and  the  little  he  ever  had  was  limited  to  his 
days  in  the  rectory  of  St.  Peter's.  He  had  no  hobbies  or 
amusements,  as  Scott  had,  to  take  the  place  of  academic 
training;  he  was  neither  a  historian  nor  an  antiquarian, — he 
was  not  even  a  great  reader.  And  as  if  to  complete  his  separa 
tion  from  books,  that  natural  school  for  his  future  art,  he  was 
sent  to  sea  in  1806,  on  the  Sterling,  a  merchant  vessel  bound 
for  England  and  Spain.  The  long  voyage  of  a  year  gave  him 
his  first  acquaintance  with  that  ocean  world  he  was  to  picture 
with  unique  skill,  and  in  particular  he  was  fascinated  by  the 
storms,  which  were  unusually  numerous  and  violent  during 
his  first  trip. 

This  voyage  had  been  intended  as  a  preparation  for  his 
entering  the  navy.  Accordingly  he  was  commissioned  mid 
shipman  on  January  i,  1808,  and  entered  active  service  seven 
weeks  later.  Little  is  known  accurately  of  his  movements 
during  the  next  few  years.  Curiously  enough  his  most  im 
portant  duties  were  assigned  on  those  frontier  waters  which 


LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

could  not  have  seemed  strange  to  him  after  his  boyhood  on 
Otsego  Lake:  he  was  sent  to  Lake  Ontario  in  1808  to  assist  in 
building  a  brig  of  sixteen  guns,  to  be  used  in  a  possible  war 
against  England.  The  great  lake  and  its  shores  he  later  em 
bodied  in  the  scenery  of  The  Pathfinder.  The  next  year,  1809, 
he  was  for  a  short  time  in  command  of  the  gunboats  on  Lake 
Champlain.  The  following  winter  he  was  on  the  Wasp,  com 
manded  by  Lawrence,  the  future  hero  of  the  Chesapeake.  A 
year  later,  January  i,  1811,  his  naval  career  ended  with  his 
marriage  to  a  Miss  De  Lancey,  at  Mamaroneck,  Westchester 
County,  New  York.  His  resignation  from  the  navy  was  ac 
cepted  the  following  May. 

The  family  into  which  he  had  married  were  originally  of 
Huguenot  stock.  His  bride's  father  had  fought  on  the  Brit 
ish  side  in  the  Revolutionary  war,  and  the  family  home  was 
in  the  aristocratic  Tory  section,  within  the  influence  of  the 
British  armies.  Affection  for  his  wife  undoubtedly  was  the 
chief  reason  for  Cooper's  just  treatment  of  the  Tories  in  his 
novels,  but  perhaps  some  credit  should  be  given  to  his  natural 
sympathy  in  general  with  the  stately  society  that  had  held 
with  the  crown.  Whatever  he  may  have  thought  of  the 
Tories  originally,  it  should  be  remembered  that  before  The 
Spy  was  written  he  had  lived  in  Westchester  County  for  six 
years,  the  only  time  in  his  life  that  he  was  subjected  to  those 
combined  influences  of  history  and  landscape  that  made 
Scott's  romance;  and  his  own  life  as  a  country  gentleman 
perhaps  brought  back  and  explained  to  him  the  point  of  view 
of  the  aristocrats  before  the  Revolution. 

For  a  year  or  so  after  his  marriage  Cooper  lived  at  his 
father-in-law's  home.  After  a  second  year  in  a  rented  house 
near  by,  he  returned  to  Cooperstown  in  1814,  began  to  build 
a  large  home,  and  evidently  intended  to  duplicate,  as  gentle 
man  proprietor  of  the  estate,  the  honored  history  of  his  father, 
who  had  died  in  1809.  But  as  his  wife  was  discontented  with 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  57 

the  frontier,  he  returned  to  Westchester  in  1817,  and  settled 
in  Scarsdale. 

II 

Here  in  1820  Cooper  began  his  literary  career  by  the  in 
spiration  of  the  merest  chance.  Having  read  a  contemporary 
English  novel  which  seemed  to  him  rather  poor,  with  charac 
teristic  self-confidence  he  remarked  that  he  could  write  as 
good  a  book  himself.  The  boast  was  carried  out,  though 
whether  the  novel  he  read  could  have  been  worse  than  the 
one  he  wrote,  is  fairly  debatable.  This  first  venture,  Precau 
tion^  is  sometimes  treated  with  seriousness  as  an  index  to 
Cooper's  qualities  both  as  a  writer  and  as  a  man,  and  in  the 
limited  respect  that  anything  a  man  does,  even  chopping 
wood,  may  indicate  his  character,  the  view  is  not  untenable. 
But  the  circumstances  of  composition  and  the  subject-matter 
of  the  book  prevented  Cooper  from  showing  a  single  spark  of 
his  genius,  and  his  own  judgment  of  his  'prentice  work  is  the 
correct  one — that  it  was  altogether  unworthy.  He  afterward 
realized  the  error  of  choosing  an  English  plot,  laid  in  English 
scenes  he  had  not  visited,  and  in  a  society  he  knew  only  from 
other  novels;  if  he  chose  such  a  subject,  not  only  in  imitation 
of  the  model  he  had  promised  to  excel,  but  with  the  knowl 
edge  that  a  volume  of  dukes  and  earls  would  satisfy  a  vulgar 
public,  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  trouble  his  conscience  gave 
him  when  his  friends  said  it  would  have  been  more  patriotic 
to  write  of  American  life ;  it  was  the  charge  of  disloyalty  that 
he  felt,  rather  than  a  distinct  consciousness  that  his  theme 
was  not  one  for  his  peculiar  genius.  The  English  country 
life  in  Precaution  might  have  been  treated  with  Miss  Aus 
ten's  exquisite  satire,  or  with  Trollope's  emotional  vigor;  but 
Cooper  was  neither  exquisite  nor  a  satirist,  and  he  lacked  en 
tirely  the  reflective  penetration  to  reach  the  emotional  crises 
of  conventional  lives.  In  the  novel  the  Moseleys  and  Chat- 


58  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

tertons  and  Ives  are  occupied  with  nothing  more  critical  than 
gossip  and  prearranged  marriages,  with  a  suspicion  of  a 
villain  threatening  to  enliven  the  story,  and  throughout  the 
dialogue  a  display  of  far  more  worldly  wisdom  than  the  nar 
row  lives  of  the  speakers  can  permit  them  to  test  in  practice. 
The  book  made  no  impression  in  America,  but  in  England  it 
was  received  with  complacence,  as  it  was  supposed  to  be  by  a 
British  author. 

Among  his  other  resemblances  to  Scott,  Cooper  had  great 
tenacity  of  purpose,  and  he  was  too  sincere  a  critic  not  to 
realize  that  he  had  fallen  somewhat  short  of  his  boast;  in  ad 
dition,  as  has  been  said,  he  was  troubled  by  the  charge  of  lit 
erary  disloyalty  to  his  country.  Accordingly  he  began  an 
other  story  at  once,  determined  to  atone  for  his  shortcomings, 
and  on  December  22,  1821,  The  Spy,  his  first  great  novel, 
was  published  in  New  York.  He  tells  the  history  of  the  book 
in  the  dignified  preface  to  a  later  edition  in  1849.  He  had 
heard  the  experiences  of  a  revolutionary  spy,  the  original  of 
Harvey  Birch,  and  when  the  English  quality  of  Precaution  be 
came  a  reproach  to  him,  and  he  had  chosen  patriotism  for  the 
theme  of  a  second  book,  the  subject  of  which,  as  he  says, 
should  admit  of  no  cavil,  the  tale  of  the  spy  naturally  came  to 
mind,  and  expanded  itself  into  the  famous  plot.  So  much  in 
tention  and  care  there  was  in  the  preparation  of  the  novel;  but 
Cooper  tells  an  anecdote  of  its  composition  which  not  only 
illustrates  the  hopes  of  an  American  author  in  the  first  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  but  also  indicates  that  his  crafts 
manship,  like  Scott's,  was  haphazard.  The  first  volume  of 
the  novel  was  in  print  several  months  before  a  line  of  the 
second  was  written.  "As  the  second  volume  was  slowly 
printing,  from  manuscript  that  was  barely  dry  when  it  went 
into  the  compositor's  hands,  the  publisher  intimated  that  it 
might  grow  to  a  length  that  would  consume  the  profits.  To 
set  his  mind  at  rest,  the  last  chapter  was  actually  written, 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  59 

printed,  and  paged  several  weeks  before  the  chapters  that 
precede  it  were  even  thought  of." 

Cooper  began  Precaution  with  the  simple  resolve  to  write  a 
novel.  He  began  The  Spy  with  the  same  resolve;  but  it  was 
of  immense  advantage  that  he  built  it  upon  a  legend  already 
in  his  mind.  His  was  the  genius  of  the  true  story-teller,  to 
whom  inspiration  comes  in  the  form  of  plot  rather  than  as  an 
idea.  He  would  have  been  as  puzzled  as  Homer  himself  at 
the  doctrine  of  the  modern  novelist  that  character  is  plot.  His 
genius  comprehended  few  subtleties,  but  he  had  the  rarest  of 
gifts,  the  ability  to  unfold  a  tale  that  happens  before  our  eyes, 
and  which  seems  to  have  been  true  always.  The  difference 
between  Cooper  fumbling  with  the  vague  problem  of  writing 
an  English  novel  of  manners  better  than  an  Englishman,  and 
Cooper  with  the  true  task  of  his  genius,  telling  a  story  of  ad 
venture, — affords  one  of  the  astonishing  contrasts  of  literary 
history.  From  such  a  germ  of  plot  as  he  now  had  to  start 
with,  he  could  always  draw  a  fable  to  hold  men  from  the 
chimney-corner,  as  Hawthorne's  thought  could  blossom  from 
a  symbol;  but  without  such  a  germ  of  action  Cooper's  genius 
was  crippled,  in  more  novels  than  his  first. 

The  Spy  grows  from  the  history  of  one  who  served  the 
Colonies  in  the  Revolution  by  pretending  to  be  in  the  British 
service.  None  but  Washington  knew  his  true  character,  and 
the  deception  was  so  thorough  that  the  American  troops  more 
than  once  caught  him,  and  all  but  succeeded  in  hanging  him. 
At  the  end  of  the  war  Congress  learned  of  his  faithfulness,  and 
voted  him  a  sum  of  money,  but  he  refused  all  recompense, 
having  suffered  peril  and  ignominy  out  of  pure  love  of  coun 
try.  The  patriotism  of  the  character  is  what  first  appealed  to 
Cooper;  it  is  interesting,  however,  to  trace  the  story-teller's 
instinct  as  it  enlarged  on  the  original  sketch.  The  refusal  of 
a  reward  is  made  more  remarkable  by  portraying  Harvey 
Birch  by  nature  or  force  of  circumstances  a  miser.  The  fact 


60  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

that  he  is  in  mortal  danger  from  the  countrymen  he  is  serving, 
comes  home  with  more  tragic  force  through  the  portrait  of  his 
dying  father,  whom  Harvey's  heroic  disguise  has  brought  to 
disgrace  and  a  pauper's  death-bed;  his  father's  need  also  ex 
plains,  in  part  at  least,  Harvey's  greed  for  gold.  He  is  an  out 
cast  for  his  patriotism,  but  by  nature,  as  Cooper  is  careful  to 
show,  he  loves  home  life  and  gentle  society;  and  the  pathos  of 
his  resolve  to  leave  a  dishonored  name  to  no  children  of  his 
own,  is  further  set  off  with  effective  irony  by  Katy  Haynes' 
wish  to  marry  him — Katy  being  the  person  she  is.  All  this 
misery  which  Cooper  naturally  imagined  for  his  spy,  he  turns 
to  fine  account  by  portraying  Harvey  without  a  heroic  trait, 
save  his  one  master  purpose,  and  even  his  patriotism  has  be 
come  through  too  prolonged  suffering  less  a  thing  of  passion 
than  of  duty;  he  has  neither  mental  ability  nor  personal  prow 
ess,  and  were  it  not  for  his  strong  will,  he  would  show  him 
self  a  coward.  The  character  illustrates  at  once  what  has 
been  thought  Cooper's  most  remarkable  gift,  a  perfect  blend 
of  romance  and  realism.  Harvey's  dangers  and  escapes  are 
not  less  thrilling  than  those  of  the  more  heroic  Rob  Roy,  yet 
while  the  page  is  still  before  him  the  reader  sees  no  legendary 
glamor  over  Harvey  himself;  so  actual  does  he  seem,  with  his 
limitations  and  virtues,  that  the  novel  has  often  been  mis 
taken  for  biography.  Harvey  also  illustrates,  as  does  Leather- 
stocking,  Cooper's  felicity  in  fixing  a  story  upon  a  definite 
region,  literally  giving  it  a  local  habitation.  This  was  Ir- 
ving's  great  fortune  too;  1819,  the  year  of  The  Sketch  Book, 
and  1821,  the  year  of  The  Spy,  gave  American  landscape, 
except  for  the  Leatherstocking  Tales,  the  only  well-known 
legends  it  owns  to  this  day. 

The  individuality  of  Harvey  Birch  is  greater  because  he 
has  no  parallel  in  Cooper's  writings.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
he  is  sometimes  mentioned  with  Leatherstocking  and  Long 
Tom  Coffin,  for  like  them  he  is  the  ultra-romantic  hero  of  the 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  61 

novel  he  appears  in,  and  like  them  is  set  apart  from  the  sur 
rounding  characters  in  a  peculiar  isolation,  more  marked  than 
the  somewhat  similar  distinction  of  Rob  Roy  or  Robin  Hood. 
But  in  detail  he  has  nothing  in  common  with  any  of  these 
heroes, — principally,  as  has  been  said,  because  he  is  in  the 
personal  sense  not  a  hero  at  all.  And  he  has  none  of  the  phi 
losophy,  the  zest  in  life,  the  self-completeness,  that  are  car 
dinal  traits  in  Natty  Bumppo  and  Long  Tom.  They  have 
outward  experiences,  adventures  of  life  and  death,  but  they 
come  before  the  reader  with  their  minds  from  the  beginning 
in  the  peace  of  an  un-Byronic  stoicism;  Harvey  Birch's  suffer 
ings  are  more  of  the  mind  than  of  the  body,  and  his  adven 
tures  have  always  the  double  interest  of  an  outward  and  in 
ward  conflict.  And  whereas  the  isolation  of  Leatherstocking 
and  Long  Tom  seems  all-sufficient,  as  though  they  could  have 
neither  forefathers  nor  descendants,  Harvey's  loneliness  is 
inherited  from  his  race,  in  some  inequality  of  power  to  aspira 
tion;  his  dying  father  saw  within  the  son  that  which  would 
make  him  a  pilgrim  through  life,  and  seemed  to  recognize  it 
as  the  extension  of  his  own  destiny. 

Whatever  was  his  courage  when  he  undertook  his  desperate 
career,  Harvey  shows  little  bravery  after  he  has  become  a 
hunted  outlaw.  He  is  almost  a  coward,  if  the  name  cowardice 
can  describe  dread  of  a  traitor's  death,  made  terribly  real  on 
many  a  page.  Indeed,  the  fear  of  hanging  is  a  main  theme  in 
the  story — in  Major  Andre's  fate,  and  in  the  adventures  of 
Captain  Wharton,  of  Harvey,  and  of  the  miserable  Skinner. 
The  hanging  of  the  Skinner,  powerfully  described  in  the  last 
pages  of  the  book,  not  only  gets  rid  of  the  villain,  but  justifies 
in  Captain  Wharton  and  Harvey  the  fear  of  death,  which  the 
frequent  escapes  and  rescues  had  made  seem  somewhat  vague 
and  unreal.  With  the  terrible  fascination  of  the  Skinner's 
death  Harvey's  cowardice  is,  as  it  were,  expiated.  When  he 
dies  honorably  on  the  field  of  battle  in  the  War  of  1812,  his 


62  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

better  self,  his  patriotism,  has  become  a  kind  of  mania,  and 
with  this  passion  blends  a  jealous  pride  in  Washington's  ex 
oneration  of  his  character.  For  the  conventional  conclusions 
of  that  curiously  written  last  chapter  Cooper  might  make 
apologies,  but  he  was  always  singularly  happy  in  imagining 
the  old  age  of  his  best  characters,  and  the  convincing  fitness 
of  Harvey  Birch's  end  could  not  be  bettered. 

The  Spy  is  usually  reckoned  among  historical  novels, 
though  strictly  speaking  there  is  no  history  in  it.  As  a  nov 
elist  Cooper  has  little  interest  in  history  for  its  own  sake,  nor 
for  the  elevation  of  the  plot  by  testing  the  fictitious  charac 
ters  in  the  crucible  of  great  historic  crises.  Those  aspects 
of  history  which  in  the  novel  have  to  do  with  panorama, 
and,  strangely  enough,  with  action,  Cooper  usually  neglects; 
though  his  genius  is  for  the  story  of  adventure,  he  had  neither 
the  interest  in  the  past  nor  the  scholarship  to  include  a  series 
of  actual  events  in  his  romance.  He  goes  to  history  only  for 
the  picturesque  setting  of  past  time.  So  in  The  Spy,  though 
much  that  is  told  might  have  happened,  and  though  the  whole 
book  has  the  air  of  history,  none  of  it  is  historical  in  the  same 
sense  as  the  great  episodes  in  Kenilworth  or  The  Abbot.  But 
Cooper  had  a  genuine  gift  for  historical  portraiture.  In  The 
Spy  he  presented  that  picture  of  Washington  which  has 
seemed  most  authentic  to  the  popular  imagination.  The  be 
nevolence  and  aristocratic  reserve  which  distinguish  the  great 
patriot  in  tradition  are  here  set  forth  with  the  conviction 
Cooper  always  gives  to  the  characters  he  cares  for;  and  if  he 
himself  showed  in  his  later  career  a  lack  of  tact  and  manner, 
he  might  vindicate  his  breeding  by  this  picture,  as  fine  a 
conception  of  gentleman  as  Thackeray  himself  could  give. 

The  women  in  The  Spy  are  on  the  whole  as  well  imagined 
as  any  in  Cooper's  writing,  and — with  the  forbearance  of 
Professor  Lounsbury  and  other  severe  critics  of  Cooper's 
"  females," — this  is  no  slight  praise.  At  their  worst  Cooper's 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  63 

heroines  are  unspeakable,  but  at  their  best  they  need  no  apol 
ogies.  In  this  novel  the  objection  of  sentimentality  or  over- 
propriety  is  removed  by  the  naturalness  of  the  plot,  which  ac 
counts  satisfactorily  for  the  traits  in  the  ladies'  characters  that 
might  otherwise  seem  excessive.  Miss  Jeanette  Peyton,  the 
mouthpiece  of  that  social  correctness  from  which  no  Cooper 
heroine  ever  escapes,  is  more  acceptable  because  she  cherishes 
her  own  dignified  romance,  and  because  Mr.  Wharton,  the 
head  of  the  house,  himself  stands  in  no  less  dread  of  the  pro 
prieties;  her  character  is  made  natural  by  the  modes  of  thought 
about  her.  Sarah  Wharton,  the  older  niece,  resembles  her 
aunt  so  strongly  that  her  idealization  of  Colonel  Wellmere  and 
the  dignity  with  which  she  bears  her  disappointment  are  easily 
understood.  The  generous  spirit  of  Frances  shows  her  re 
semblance  to  her  brother;  she  is  as  impulsive,  as  true,  and 
as  proud  as  he;  it  is  to  her,  though  she  sides  with  the  con 
tinentals,  that  he  naturally  turns,  rather  than  to  Sarah,  who 
like  him  is  loyal  to  the  King.  As  the  elder  Wharton  helps  to 
explain  Miss  Peyton's  character,  so  the  son  interprets  the 
devotion  of  Frances  to  Dunwoodie;  otherwise  their  love  story 
might  have  been  a  mawkish  affair,  as  they  were  betrothed 
at  the  very  beginning  of  the  book.  Like  Scott,  Cooper  tells 
no  love  story  for  its  own  sake,  and  generally  he  leaves  it  in  the 
background,  as  a  graceful  incident,  when  time  serves.  But 
in  The  Spy  the  relation  of  Frances  and  Dunwoodie  becomes 
vitally  important,  when  Captain  Wharton  is  captured  as  a 
spy  by  his  future  brother-in-law;  whatever  sentimentality 
there  is  in  the  situation  is  lost  in  the  melodramatic  interest. 
Miss  Singleton  stands  somewhat  apart  from  the  story,  the 
pathetic  victim  of  love  and  fate;  it  is  from  her  that  modern 
sympathy  has  been  furthest  withdrawn  by  the  changing 
fashions  of  thought;  in  the  sentimental  vogue  which  lasted 
well  into  Mrs.  Stowe's  work,  she  is  the  typical  victim  of  life, 
beautiful  and  innocent,  and  cherishing  a  secret  passion.  Of 


64  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

course  she  must  die  prematurely,  not  only  because  that  is  the 
fate  of  the  type,  but  because  she  is  somewhat  in  the  way.  Her 
death  by  the  bullet  of  the  Skinner  who  is  shooting  at  Lawton, 
makes  it  possible  to  hang  the  Skinner  later  with  the  reader's 
cordial  approval.  The  thorough  contrivance  of  the  plot  is 
further  made  clear  by  a  comparison  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  summary 
method  of  disposing  of  her  condemned  heroines,  Eva  or  Nina 
or  Mara,  with  Cooper's  careful  preparation  which  makes 
perfectly  natural  the  Skinner's  attempt  to  kill  Lawton  and 
his  accidental  killing  of  Miss  Singleton. 

Maria  Edgeworth  praised  the  character  of  the  Irish  woman, 
Betty  Flanagan,  saying  that  the  portrait  could  not  have  been 
bettered  by  an  Irish  writer.  She  is  one  of  the  best  minor 
characters  Cooper  created,  for  he  developed  later  a  tendency 
to  slight  the  unimportant  persons  in  his  narrative,  unless  he 
had  a  special  interest  in  them.  In  this  instance  he  imagined 
a  genuinely  funny  character,  and  humor,  as  his  hastiest 
reader  knows,  is  not  usually  his  strength. 

Dr.  Sitgreaves,  the  surgeon,  belongs  to  a  type  Cooper  must 
have  loved,  for  they  are  represented  in  almost  every  novel. 
Some  of  the  novelist's  critics  call  the  whole  series  " bores," 
using  the  word  for  both  classification  and  description.  It 
would  be  fairer  to  call  them  pedants,  for  invariably  their  in 
firmity  is  absorption  in  some  department  of  knowledge.  Dr. 
Sitgreaves  inclines  to  the  tedious  when  he  continues  to  plead 
with  Lawton  for  a  more  scientific  sabering  of  the  enemy;  aside 
from  this  Dickens-like  tag  of  his  personality  he  is  less  unat 
tractive  than  most  of  the  type,  and  his  humor,  though  un 
conscious,  is  not  slight. 

Well-made  as  is  the  plot  of  The  Spy,  and  convincing  as  the 
characters  are,  the  book  leaves  a  strong  final  impression  of 
two  other  qualities — the  distinctness  of  the  scene,  and  the 
rapid  movements  within  it.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  plan  of 
the  fight,  for  example,  should  be  so  easily  comprehended, 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  65 

considering  the  confusion  of  the  field ;  not  less  distinct  to  the 
mind  is  the  location  of  Wharton's  last  prison  and  the  secret 
hut  on  the  mountain.  And  the  distinctness  of  the  scene  is  not 
interfered  with  by  the  rapid  movements  of  the  soldiers  and 
the  Spy  and  the  Skinners,  nor  by  the  two  splendid  chases  that 
for  some  of  us  were  the  most  exciting  reading  of  our  boyhood. 
Only  an  opulent  genius  could  have  described  two  such  pur 
suits  under  circumstances  so  nearly  identical;  but  whenever 
the  situation  involves  rapid  physical  motion,  Cooper  has  no 
superior  in  English,  perhaps  in  any  literature.  His  boy  read 
ers  learn  to  look  for  the  race  or  pursuit  in  every  novel,  know 
ing  it  will  probably  be  the  best  moment  of  the  story. 

Cooper's  fame  is  so  linked  with  the  Leatherstocking  Tales 
that  it  is  natural  to  look  upon  The  Spy  as  a  sort  of  practice 
piece  for  his  more  typical  work.  In  comparison  with  that 
unique  series  it  undoubtedly  suffers,  simply  because  it  belongs 
hi  a  well-filled  compartment  of  the  novel,  and  many  of  its 
fellows  in  the  class  are  world  masterpieces.  But  among  the 
historical  novels  of  adventure  it  takes  a  high  place, — quite 
the  highest  place  among  American  historical  novels.  Its 
popularity  has  been  continued,  as  it  was  immediate.  It  was 
the  first  American  novel  to  win  the  respect  of  the  generally 
contemptuous  English  critics,  and  the  American  press,  which 
had  liked  the  book  by  instinct,  was  pleased  with  the  mild 
praise,  as  though  it  were  a  national  tribute.  It  would  not 
have  been  surprising  if  the  subject  of  the  story  had  prejudiced 
English  readers  in  those  years  of  wounded  feelings.  After 
some  difficulty  an  English  publisher  was  found,  in  the  man 
who  had  brought  out  The  Sketch  Book.  In  1822  The  Spy  was 
translated  into  French,  and  afterward  into  most  of  the  other 
European  languages.  Cooper  had  accomplished  his  purpose ; 
he  had  written  a  novel  on  the  theme  of  American  patriotism, 
with  American  scenes  and  American  characters,  and  with  the 
minimum  obligation  to  the  old  country  that  a  man  of  culture 


66  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

could  owe;  and  the  book  had  been  welcomed  by  the  civilized 
world. 

Ill 

The  reception  of  The  Spy  naturally  gave  Cooper  confidence 
in  his  powers,  yet  he  began  his  next  story  with  no  false  hopes; 
he  did  not  realize  as  yet  what  was  his  natural  vein,  and  his 
attitude  toward  his  art  was  still  experimental.  His  success, 
however,  had  given  him  a  certain  right  to  choose  his  subject 
without  regard  to  the  feelings  of  others,  and  having  celebrated 
his  country  in  general,  he  decided  to  describe  the  scenes  of  his 
childhood .  The  resolve  was  made  out  of  pure  love  of  Coopers- 
town  and  the  lake,  for  he  was  too  good  a  critic  not  to  foresee, 
as  he  says,  that  elaborate  descriptions  such  as  he  purposed 
would  endanger  the  narrative  interest.  When  The  Pioneers 
was  published,  in  1823,  the  eagerness  with  which  it  was 
awaited  and  welcomed  gave  proof  of  the  genuine  success  of 
The  Spy,  and  of  virtue  in  the  new  story  more  than  the  author 
had  dared  to  hope.  He  had  written  it,  as  he  declared  in  a 
somewhat  pugnacious  preface,  to  please  himself;  but  the 
thirty-five  hundred  copies  disposed  of  in  the  first  half-day's 
sale  indicated  that  the  public  had  not  quarreled  with  his  taste. 

The  Pioneers  stands  fourth  in  the  complete  cycle  of  the 
Leatherstocking  Tales,  but  being  actually  written  first,  it 
has  an  added  interest  as  illustrating  the  growth  of  his  great 
frontier  characters  in  Cooper's  mind.  The  scenery  and  the 
general  society  of  the  novel  were  transcripts  from  his  boy 
hood  memories;  the  home  of  Marmaduke  Templeton  seems 
to  have  been  a  less  accurate  reproduction  of  his  father's  house. 
From  this  first  novel  as  a  document  of  his  own  life  he  later  ex 
panded  and  elaborated  the  Leatherstocking  series,  much  as 
he  had  evolved  Harvey  Birch  from  the  anecdote  of  a  Revolu 
tionary  spy.  It  is  little  to  be  wondered  at,  therefore,  that  The 
Pioneers  is  in  general  far  more  crude  than  the  later  refine- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  67 

ments  upon  it;  but  it  has  singular  merits,  too  often  unrecog 
nized.  Cooper's  realism  is  severely  tested  by  this  theme;  the 
author  who  wished  to  set  his  country  honorably  before  for 
eign  readers,  who  wished  to  immortalize  the  home  he  loved 
best,  might  have  found  pardon  for  some  rose-tinted  exaggera 
tion.  But  the  story  presents  the  unsoftened  outlines  of  the 
new  settlement,  its  pretensions  to  architecture  and  ceremony, 
the  ignorance  and  recklessness  of  its  inhabitants,  the  demo 
cratic  confusion  of  its  society.  Cooper's  Americanism,  loyal 
as  it  was,  never  blinded  him  to  the  faults  unavoidable  in  so 
new  a  country,  and  no  later  writer  has  portrayed  with  more 
merciless  severity  the  meddlesome,  officious  sheriff,  the  quack 
physician  who  learns  his  profession  by  observing  the  results 
of  his  practice,  the  disreputable  lawyer,  and  the  incompetent 
builder.  No  single  figure  in  the  story  escapes  altogether  the 
suspicion  and  pity  inherent  in  such  thorough  realism;  even 
Leatherstocking  is  here  somewhat  vulgar  and  narrow -brained, 
with  none  of  the  philosophy  and  dignity  he  exhibits  in  The 
Deerslayer  or  The  Prairie.  All  the  adventurous  spirits  that 
hold  this  outpost  of  civilization  have  some  blight  upon  them, 
so  that  the  reader  half  questions  whether  Cooper  considers 
them  social  explorers  or  derelicts.  Even  the  amusing  Betty 
Flanagan,  who  lives  on  from  The  Spy  as  the  wife  of  Ser 
geant  Hollister,  and  who  keeps  the  Bold  Dragoon  Inn,  named 
in  memory  of  Captain  Lawton,  is  more  canny  and  less  impul 
sive  than  in  her  Revolutionary  days. 

Cooper  described  this  society  with  such  realism  because  he 
knew  it  perfectly;  it  may  be  doubted  if  he  ever  knew  any  other 
society  so  well.  It  was  the  school  in  which  his  youthful  mind 
had  learned  democracy,  and  perhaps  he  owed  to  it,  with  good 
reason,  the  disillusioned  suspicion  of  human  nature  which 
colors  both  his  works  and  his  life,  and  which  has  been  charged 
against  Americans  as  a  national  trait.  It  was  not  to  such  a 
communitv  no  matter  what  its  good  qualities,  that  the  poetry 


68  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

in  Cooper's  temperament  responded,  but  to  the  charm  of  the 
wilderness  which  the  community  had  invaded.  A  settlement 
like  Cooperstown  represented  to  him,  as  to  any  good  citizen, 
a  necessary  intermediate  condition  between  the  savage  life  of 
the  forest  and  the  civilized  life  of  culture;  but  however  much 
he  approved  of  the  end,  his  heart  went  back  to  the  unspoiled 
woods.  Apparently  this  was  his  interest  in  nature  from  his 
boyhood ;  his  earliest  dreams  must  have  been  of  such  pano 
ramas  as  Marmaduke  Temple  beheld  when  he  first  came  to  his 
uncleared  estate.  The  point  is  worth  dwelling  on;  for  the  at 
traction  of  the  Leatherstocking  Tales  is  largely  in  the  ideal 
ization  of  the  disappearing  wilderness,  the  pathos,  as  the  old 
hunter  felt,  of  the  clearings  and  "improvements,"  of  the 
wasted  timber  and  slaughtered  game.  Cooper  reserves  his 
realism  for  human  nature;  the  poet  in  him  delights  in  the 
woods  and  streams.  Because  Leatherstocking  and  Indian 
John  in  this  first  novel  were  connected  with  this  saddened 
romance  of  nature,  they  were  transfigured  in  the  popular 
imagination  with  all  the  poetry  that  Cooper,  learning  by  the 
popular  hint,  later  bestowed  upon  them. 

Cooper's  next  story,  like  The  Spy,  took  its  inspiration  from 
a  random  motive.  Before  the  publication  of  The  Pioneers  he 
had  attended  a  dinner  at  which  the  authorship  of  The  Pirate, 
Scott's  latest  novel,  was  discussed.  A  gentleman  present  con 
tended  that  Scott  could  not  have  written  it,  since  he  did  not 
possess  a  knowledge  of  seamanship  so  minute  as  it  showed. 
Cooper's  naval  experience  led  him  to  observe  at  once  that 
The  Pirate  showed  very  little  knowledge  of  seamanship  on  the 
part  of  its  author,  and  that  therefore  Scott  might  well  have 
written  it.  Cooper  did  not  convince  his  hearers,  but  the  dis 
cussion  directed  his  own  thoughts  to  the  ocean  as  an  unworked 
realm  of  romance.  He  acted  upon  the  idea  with  characteris 
tic  energy,  and  The  Pilot,  the  first  great  sea  story,  appeared 
in  1824.  It  bore  the  date  of  the  preceding  year,  but  its  pub- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  69 

lication  had  been  delayed  by  the  death  of  the  author's  son, 
Fenimore. 

The  Pilot  is  a  tale  of  adventure  at  sea,  but  it  also  develops 
the  theme  of  patriotism  begun  in  The  Spy,  and  to  the  same 
extent  as  The  Spy  it  is  an  historical  novel.  It  records  no 
event  of  history,  but  it  imagines  the  historical  atmosphere,  as 
the  earlier  novel  had  done,  and  it  portrays  one  authentic 
person,  Paul  Jones,  as  The  Spy  had  included  a  portrait  of 
Washington.  The  materials  of  the  story  lent  themselves  to 
the  most  thoroughgoing  romance, — the  achievements  of  the 
American  navy  were  among  the  country's  proudest  legends; 
the  personality  of  Paul  Jones  was  as  mysteriously  adventu 
rous  as  the  ocean  itself;  and  the  cause  of  liberty,  ennobling 
the  story  above  any  other  sea  tale,  identified  itself  poetically 
with  the  freedom  of  the  great  waters.  The  ocean  also  made 
possible  more  exciting  chases  than  the  land,  and  Cooper's 
genius  for  that  kind  of  episode  is  at  its  best  in  the  escape  of  the 
frigate  from  the  shoals,  and  its  battle  with  the  English  three- 
decker.  In  these  manceuvers  Cooper  was  exploiting  the 
seamanship  which  The  Pirate  lacked,  but  no  reader  would 
suspect  any  other  interest  than  the  adventure  itself,  the  genu 
ineness  of  the  excitement  is  so  little  interfered  with  by  the  tech 
nical  purpose. 

Scott  had  represented  the  ocean  from  the  landsman's  point 
of  view,  as  a  thing  of  terror.  In  reproducing  the  sailor's 
world  Cooper  had  to  show  the  preference  for  the  deep  sea  and 
the  actual  fear  of  the  coast.  By  laying  his  plot  off  the  shores 
of  Scotland  he  is  enabled  to  bring  his  heroines  naturally  into 
the  story,  and  what  is  more  essential,  he  can  introduce  almost 
the  only  danger  that  belongs  peculiarly  to  the  water.  The 
first  scene  of  the  story  makes  the  reader  fearful  for  the  strange 
vessels  so  near  the  coast;  the  peril  is  brought  home  by  the 
frigate's  narrow  escape  from  the  rocks;  and  the  wreck  of  the 
Ariel, — a  scene  of  unusual  energy  and  grandeur,  even  for 


70  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Cooper, — completes  the  tragedy,  and  by  implication,  gives 
the  measure  of  the  pilot's  skill  in  saving  the  larger  vessel. 
And  in  the  portrayal  of  such  moments  of  danger  the  author 
found  opportunity  to  put  the  seaman's  point  of  view  into  pic 
turesque  phrase,  as  in  the  conversation  between  Barnstable 
and  Long  Tom  Coffin,  under  the  cliff:  "This  is  just  such  a 
place  as  one  of  your  sighing  lovers  would  dote  on;  a  little  land, 
a  little  water,  and  a  good  deal  of  rock.  Damme,  Long  Tom, 
but  I  am  more  than  half  of  your  mind,  that  an  island  now  and 
then  is  all  the  terra  firma  that  a  seaman  needs." 

"It's  reason  and  philosophy,  sir,"  returned  the  sedate 
cockswain;  "and  what  land  there  is  should  always  be  a  soft 
mud,  or  a  sandy  ooze,  in  order  that  an  anchor  might  hold,  and 
to  make  soundings  sartin." 

By  laying  the  plot  of  his  sea  story  near  land  Cooper  has  an 
additional  advantage  in  the  resulting  complication  of  the  in 
cidents.  The  excitement  of  the  storms  and  the  fights  would 
hardly  sustain  the  interest  through  a  whole  novel,  and  the  best 
episodes  of  The  Pilot  are  occasioned  by  the  movements  on 
land.  The  treachery  of  Dillon  leads  to  practically  all  the  ad 
ventures  except  the  first  escape  of  the  frigate  from  the  shoals; 
he  sends  the  expresses  by  land  which  bring  the  gunshot  from 
the  fort,  fatally  maiming  the  Ariel,  and  which  summon  the 
English  fleet  for  the  last  battle  with  the  frigate;  and  his  re 
capture  by  Long  Tom,  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  Abbey 
guard,  is  not  the  least  sensational  adventure  in  the  story. 

The  character  that  gives  the  book  its  title  differs  strongly 
from  any  Cooper  had  yet  drawn,  though  it  is  repeated  with 
variations  in  his  later  sea  tales.  Paul  Jones,  as  Cooper 
imagines  him,  is  no  such  idealization  of  romance  as  Leather- 
stocking,  nor  such  a  hero  as  he  is  in  popular  memory. 
Cooper  represents  him  as  an  adventurer,  whose  remarkable 
ability  for  the  time  was  used  for  the  cause  of  liberty,  but  whose 
motives  were  not  altogether  noble;  vanity  weighs  with  him 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  71 

more  than  patriotism,  of  which  indeed  he  has  none,  since  he 
owns  no  country,  and  he  would  serve  a  flattering  tyrant  as 
quickly  as  he  would  the  Continental  Congress.  It  is  surpris 
ing  that  Cooper  can  make  so  much  of  a  hero  he  has  so  little 
sympathy  for;  in  the  comments  of  Barnstable,  and  in  the 
meetings  of  Paul  Jones  and  Alice  Dunscombe,  it  is  perfectly 
evident  that  the  Scotch  fighter  did  not  meet  the  author's 
measure  of  a  great  man.  As  a  character,  the  pilot  is  most 
effective  on  the  first  reading  of  the  story,  while  the  mystery  in 
which  he  delights  gives  its  own  interest ;  on  a  second  or  third 
reading  he  becomes  a  little  tiresome.  Except  at  sea,  and  then 
only  in  moments  of  extreme  peril,  he  is  hardly  a  man  of  ac 
tion;  he  seems  paralyzed  by  some  hidden  griefs,  that  remain 
hidden,  and  at  times  his  behavior  is  childish  if  not  unbal 
anced,  as  when  he  gives  incorrect  and  unintelligible  answers 
to  Boltrope's  hail,  on  approaching  the  Alacrity,  and  then 
boards  the  cutter  with  a  "proud  and  angry  eye,"  because  he 
has  not  been  recognized.  What  saves  him  to  the  sympathy  of 
the  reader  is  the  efficiency  he  does  show  in  moments  of  ex 
treme  peril,  and  the  private  romance  that  dignifies  and  ex 
cuses  his  foibles  by  its  unmistakable  note  of  tragedy.  His 
skill  is  employed  not  for  his  own  profit,  nor  even  for  his  fame; 
and  when  Griffith  and  Barnstable  carry  off  their  rescued 
loves  to  the  frigate,  the  pilot  loses  Alice  forever. 

A  large  part  of  his  behavior  might  be  called  Byronic,  since 
it  appears  to  be  learned  in  the  general  school  of  the  Giaour  and 
the  Corsair.  For  the  most  part  Cooper  is  too  healthy  minded 
to  be  influenced  by  the  more  mawkish  currents  of  Byronism, 
but  here,  as  in  The  Red  Rover,  the  secret  past  of  the  chief  fig 
ure  pursues  him  like  a  fury,  and  especially  induces  moods 
of  irrelevant  abstraction  just  when  a  clear,  decided  mind  is 
needed.  The  pilot  has  a  way  of  folding  his  arms  and  gazing 
into  space  at  the  precise  moment  when  the  captain  or  some 
other  officer  has  asked  for  the  instructions  that  are  to  save  or 


72  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

lose  the  ship.  And  these  theatrical  attitudes  come  so  often 
that  it  is  easy  to  understand  his  slight  popularity  with  the 
crew.  It  is  hard  to  see  why  Cooper  so  represented  Paul  Jones, 
as  he  shows  clearly,  in  the  disgust  of  Griffith  and  Barnstable 
for  such  sentimentalism,  that  he  knows  how  the  average  man 
would  criticize  the  pilot.  Yet  the  trait  is  unmistakable,  even 
exaggerated.  When  the  frigate  was  in  the  shoals  and  the 
captain  suggested  heaving  the  lead,  Paul  Jones'  "head  rested 
on  his  hand  as  he  leaned  over  the  hammock-cloth  of  the 
vessel,  and  his  whole  air  was  that  of  one  whose  thoughts 
wandered  from  the  pressing  necessities  of  their  situation. 
Griffith  was  among  those  who  had  approached  the  pilot;  and 
after  v/aiting  a  moment,  from  respect,  to  hear  the  answer  to 
his  commander's  question,  he  presumed  on  his  own  rank,  and 
leaving  the  circle  that  stood  at  a  little  distance,  stepped  to  the 
side  of  the  mysterious  guardian  of  their  lives. 

" '  Captain  Munson  desires  to  know  whether  you  wish  a  cast 
of  the  lead  ? '  said  the  young  officer,  with  a  little  impatience  of 
manner.  No  immediate  answer  was  made  to  this  repetition 
of  the  question,  and  Griffith  laid  his  hand  unceremoniously 
on  the  shoulder  of  the  other,  with  an  intent  to  rouse  him  be 
fore  he  made  another  application  for  a  reply,  but  the  con 
vulsive  start  of  the  pilot  held  him  silent  in  amazement. 
*  ###***# 

"  l  This  is  not  a  time  for  musing,  Mr.  Gray/  continued 
Griffith;  '  remember  our  compact,  and  look  to  your  charge — 
is  it  not  time  to  put  the  vessel  in  stays?  Of  what  are  you 
dreaming  ? ' 

"The  pilot  laid  his  hand  on  the  extended  arm  of  the  lieu 
tenant,  and  grasped  it  with  a  convulsive  pressure,  as  he  an 
swered  : 

"  '  'Tis  a  dream  of  reality.  You  are  young,  Mr.  Griffith, 
nor  am  I  past  the  noon  of  life ;  but,  should  you  live  fifty  years 
longer,  you  can  never  see  and  experience  what  I  have  en 
countered  in  my  little  period  of  three-and-thirty  years ! ' ' 

The  contrast  to  the  pilot  is  found  in  Long  Tom  Coffin,  the 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  73 

only  character  in  Cooper's  work  that  can  be  ranked  near 
Leatherstocking  or  Harvey  Birch.  He  is  the  creature  of  the 
same  aspects  of  Cooper's  genius,  showing  the  same  qualities 
of  truthfulness,  picturesqueness  and  self-reliance.  The  spy's 
pack  and  the  hunter's  rifle,  the  labels  of  their  individuality, 
are  matched  by  Long  Tom's  harpoon  and  his  cannon,  and  he 
is  localized  to  the  imagination  in  the  Ariel,  as  the  other  heroes 
are  fixed  in  the  landscape.  For  all  that,  Long  Tom  differs 
from  both  Harvey  Birch  and  Leatherstocking.  He  repre 
sents  no  tragic  sacrifice,  like  the  first,  nor  any  of  the  pathos 
of  advancing  civilization,  like  the  second.  Strongly  individu 
alized,  he  yet  suggests  a  class,  as  Birch  and  Leatherstocking 
do  not.  He  is  proud  of  his  Nantucket  ancestry  and  of  his 
Nantucket  comrades,  and  is  careful  himself  to  say  that  their 
skill  is  greater  than  his.  The  mention  of  the  old  mother  for 
whom  he  provides  a  comfortable  home,  gives  him  a  place  at 
once  in  normal  society.  Cooper  represents  in  him  the  highly 
developed  resourcefulness  and  the  equally  marked  idiosyn- 
cracy  to  be  found  in  a  crude  society, — and,  for  the  same  rea 
sons,  in  the  American  navy  during  the  Revolution.  It  is  evi 
dent,  however,  that  Long  Tom  would  be  out  of  place  on  the 
frigate;  he  belongs  with  the  little  schooner,  on  which  disci 
pline  is  apparently  superseded  by  the  efficiency  of  individuals, 
and  his  death  in  the  wreck  is  most  fitting.  He  is  no  wizard 
of  the  sea,  like  the  mysterious  pilot;  his  force  is  from  his  char 
acter, — his  simplicity  and  his  loyalty.  By  these  two  qualities 
he  is  ennobled  to  a  poetic  degree,  chivalrous  in  his  rough  way 
to  womanhood,  and  terrible  to  his  foes.  He  alone  in  the  story 
belongs  entirely  to  the  sea.  He  therefore  satisfies  the  imagina 
tion  more  than  Paul  Jones  and  is  more  clearly  remembered ; 
he  is  the  true  hero  of  the  book. 

The  nautical  realism  of  The  Pilot  has  been  practically  un 
questioned.  Cooper  tried  some  of  the  early  pages, — the  de 
scription  of  the  frigate  in  the  gale, — on  a  professional  sailor, 


74  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

who  visualized  the  episode  so  sincerely  that  he  said  the  jib 
would  not  stand  so  long  in  such  a  wind.  Cooper  took  the  ad 
vice  and  blew  the  sail  out  of  the  bolt-rope.  But  the  story  has 
great  realistic  force  in  directions  that  the  untechnical  lands 
man  can  appreciate.  A  genuine  atmosphere  of  physical  dan 
ger  is  sustained  at  a  higher  pitch,  with  fewer  moments  of 
relief,  than  elsewhere  in  Cooper,  who  is  the  master  of  such 
effect.  Yet  the  climaxes  of  terror  are  both  adequate  and  in 
good  taste.  The  abject  cowardice  of  Dillon,  and  his  death, 
are  matched  as  mental  pictures  by  the  physical  horror  of  the 
English  captain's  fate,  harpooned  to  the  mast.  The  good 
taste  which  restrains  these  portrayals,  by  a  master-touch  of 
art  left  Long  Tom's  last  moments  entirely  to  the  imagination. 
Cooper  wrote  other  sea  tales,  some  of  them  admirable,  but 
the  only  one  that  at  all  approaches  The  Pilot  in  merit  or  fame 
is  The  Red  Rover,  published  in  1828.  Its  plot  is  laid  entirely 
at  sea,  the  land  serving  only  as  a  place  to  start  from  and  end 
on.  The  immediate  result  is  the  necessary  elimination  of  all 
land  manceuvers  and  of  those  coast  dangers  that  stiffened  the 
plot  of  The  Pilot.  Since  the  story  is  not  historical,  the  theme 
of  patriotism  is  almost  debarred,  though  Cooper  by  a  loyal 
effort  inserts  a  flavor  of  it.  The  interest  is  in  pure  adventure. 
The  Red  Rover,  a  Byronic  corsair  of  superhuman  adroitness, 
inexplicable  moods,  and  detached  virtues,  is  strangely  drawn 
to  a  young  American,  a  disguised  officer  of  the  British  navy, 
who  is  at  the  moment  plotting  to  deliver  the  pirate  to  justice. 
The  unsuspecting  Red  Rover  takes  the  officer  into  his  con 
fidence,  and  to  further  his  piratical  purposes,  puts  him  in 
charge  of  a  merchant  vessel  just  leaving  port.  On  this  vessel 
there  are  two  ladies,  with  the  younger  of  whom  the  officer  is 
in  love.  The  conflict  of  so  many  demands  upon  his  honor 
bids  fair  to  make  this  lover,  rather  than  the  pirate,  the  hero 
of  the  book,  but  a  balance  is  struck  by  the  Red  Rover's  skill 
in  capturing  his  prey  and  defeating  an  English  man-of-war, 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  75 

and  by  his  magnanimous  treatment  of  the  prisoners.  His 
surprising  forbearance  is  due  to  a  wholesale  "  disco  very"  of 
relationships  between  himself  and  the  ladies  and  the  young 
officer,  such  as  quite  equals  the  most  optimistic  "  recogni 
tions"  of  the  old  drama.  His  career  is  saved  to  patriotism  by 
the  statement  that  it  was  the  scorn  heaped  on  him  in  the 
British  navy  for  his  American  birth  that  made  him  a  pirate. 
As  a  proof  of  his  personal  lovableness  he  is  attended  by  a 
Byronic  mistress,  disguised  as  a  boy. 

Cooper  tells  his  story  with  so  much  singleness  of  impres 
sion  that  The  Red  Rover,  as  a  whole,  has  been  ranked  higher 
than  The  Pilot,  though  the  excellence  of  that  story  in  its  sepa 
rate  scenes  is  undisputed.  It  is  only  by  esoteric  standards, 
however,  that  The  Red  Rover  can  be  considered  by  the  side  of 
the  masterpiece.  The  number  of  available  incidents  in  a 
deep-sea  story  is  so  few — limited  practically  to  storms,  mu 
tinies,  fire  and  battle — that  Cooper  actually  repeats  one  de 
vice,  the  carrying  away  of  the  masts,  to  account  for  the  cap 
ture  of  both  ships, — though  a  single  experience  would  have 
taught  the  American  officer  caution.  The  device  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  story,  by  which  the  officer  is  put  in  charge  of 
the  merchant  vessel  five  minutes  before  she  sails,  is  too  im 
possible  even  for  a  pirate  story,  and  the  Rover's  skill  and  in 
fluence  border  on  or  overlap  the  miraculous;  the  reader  sees 
none  of  the  steps  by  which  the  evolutions  of  the  pirate  ship  are 
accomplished,  nor  is  any  convincing  cause  assigned  for  the 
Rover's  hold  on  his  men.  Yet  the  plot  favored  Cooper's 
genius  in  the  opportunity  for  long  pursuits  and  for  storms, 
and  here  the  interest  rises  to  a  high  pitch.  The  Red  Rover's 
vessel  is  a  second  version  of  the  Ariel,  miraculously  speedy 
and  graceful.  Cooper's  keen  love  of  sea  things  makes  the 
boat  attractive,  though  independently  of  the  story;  no  human 
interest  adds  to  her  charm,  as  Long  Tom's  presence  enriched 
the  A  riel. 


76  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

IV 

It  was  Cooper's  intention  to  write  a  cycle  of  romances  deal 
ing  with  the  colonies  in  the  Revolutionary  War.  The  first 
and  last  of  these  Legends  of  the  Thirteen  Republics  was  Lionel 
Lincoln,  or  the  Leaguer  of  Boston,  published  in  1825.  The 
careful  preparation  of  this  novel  has  been  contrasted  with  the 
desultory  composition  of  The  Spy.  Although  the  same  ardor 
of  patriotism  inspired  Cooper  in  this  new  historical  novel, 
the  consciousness  of  faults  and  of  the  lack  of  sound  history 
in  his  first  success  persuaded  him  to  more  accurate  researches 
for  the  background  of  Lionel  Lincoln.  But  the  result  was 
most  unfortunate.  That  the  book  was  not  an  entire  failure 
was  due  to  his  general  popularity  at  the  moment.  The  dis 
appointment  must  have  been  great  to  the  author,  who  had 
done  what  care  could  to  insure  its  worth.  The  historical 
scenes — the  fights  at  Concord  and  Lexington  and  Bunker 
Hill — have  received  the  praise  of  qualified  critics,  and  still  are 
interesting.  The  main  plot,  however,  an  extremely  compli 
cated  domestic  intrigue,  not  only  is  ineffective  in  itself,  but  it 
has  no  necessary  connection  with  the  history.  The  average 
reader  would  find  little  in  the  book  to  suggest  Cooper's  fa 
miliar  qualities;  it  is  the  more  unfortunate,  since  the  histori 
cal  background  is  elaborated  with  such  unusual  truth  and 
effect. 

Cooper's  next  story,  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  1826,  came 
into  a  fame  so  immediate  and  permanent  that  the  failure  of 
Lionel  Lincoln  and  that  novel  itself  were  speedily  forgotten. 
In  1824,  while  on  a  visit  to  Glens  Falls,  he  had  his  attention 
called  to  the  caverns  in  the  river  as  a  suitable  location  for  a 
romance.  From  this  hint  grew  the  famous  episode  of  the 
fight  on  the  island,  and  the  rest  of  the  exciting  story.  If  The 
Pioneers  gave  Cooper  a  footing  in  his  peculiar  realm,  The 
Last  oj  the  Mohicans  established  his  sovereignty  for  all  time. 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  77 

Here  Leatherstocking,  or  Hawkeye,  appears  in  his  prime, 
with  his  distinct  traits  well  developed ;  and  the  Indians  rill  the 
story  with  that  fascination,  which,  according  to  some  critics, 
is  more  of  romance  than  of  reality. 

Of  all  the  Leatherstocking  Tales,  this,  the  second  in  the 
final  series,  can  most  easily  stand  by  itself;  yet  something 
must  have  been  gained  for  its  initial  success  by  the  public's 
acquaintance  with  the  hunter  and  his  Indian  comrade  in  The 
Pioneers.  Like  Cooper's  other  masterpieces,  The  Last  oj  the 
Mohicans  has  serious  faults,  or  rather  improbabilities,  of  con 
struction;^!  has  been  easy  to  point  out  the  folly  of  summoning  . 
the  heroines  to  a  fort  about  to  be  captured,  and  no  good  rea 
son  is  given  for  sending  them  by  an  unknown  and  dangerous 
route,  when  they  could  have  had  the  escort  of  the  regiments.  1 
The  woodcraft  of  this  story  has  been  an  amusing  target  for 
Mark  Twain's  criticism.  But  none  of  these  questions  touch 
the  book's  real  power,  which  lies  in  its  wealth  of  adventure. 
The  rapidity  of  the  incidents  has  been  justly  called  breathless. 
And  the  adventure  takes  place  in  an  atmosphere  of  true 
poetry,  an  unsuspected  source  of  delight  to  many  an  uncriti 
cal  reader. 

The  plot  divides  into  two  sections.  The  first  gives  the  ad 
ventures  of  Heyward,  the  sisters,  and  their  guides  on  the  peril 
ous  journey  to  Fort  William  Henry.  The  second  deals  with 
the  pursuit  of  Le  Renard  Subtil  and  his  captives  after  the 
massacre.  With  the  exception,  therefore,  of  the  brief  pause 
in  the  doomed  fort,  the  novel  tells  of  a  race  or  pursuit — that 
type  of  adventure  Cooper  excelled  in ;  and  along  the  chase  the 
interest  is  furnished  by  the  woodcraft  of  Hawkeye  and  the 
Indians.  This  latter  element  gives  the  tale  its  attraction  to 
boy  readers,  as  the  character  of  Leatherstocking  is  its  charm 
for  older  people;  there  are  so  many  other  veins  of  interest, 
however, — in  the  story  of  Cora  and  her  Indian  admirers,  in 
the  portrait  of  Montcalm  and  the  historical  element  generally, 


78  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

and  in  the  unusual  description  of  landscape, — that  the  novel 
is  fairly  sure  of  its  readers  among  all  types  of  mind. 

The  Last  oj  the  Mohicans  is  the  only  one  of  the  Leather- 
stocking  Tales  devoted  especially  to  the  Indians.  Though 
Hawkeye  dominates  the  story  by  the  more  general  interest 
of  his  character,  it  was  evidently  Cooper's  chief  intention  to 

'  picture  the  Indian  and  his  customs,  his  peculiar  strategy,  his 
faults  and  his  code  of  honor.  Chingachgook  and  his  son  Un- 
cas  are  idealized  within  the  limits  permissible  to  any  heroes 
of  romance,  yet  the  portrait  concedes  so  much  to  actual  In 
dian  character  that  Parkman's  well-known  objection  to  their 
unnatural  virtues  has  been  almost  entirely  discarded  by  later 
critical  judgment.  All  that  Cooper  can  fairly  attribute  to 
Indian  nature  he  bestows  upon  the  chieftain  and  his  son;  they, 
rather  than  Hawkeye,  know  th,e  woods,  and  the  hunter  de- 

.  fers  to  their  superior  skill  on  all  occasions.  Their  ideals  of 
courtesy,  which  more  than  anything  else,  perhaps,  make  in 
credible  the  chivalry  of  the  Mohicans,  are  probably  not  over 
drawn,  if  we  are  to  believe  modern  champions  of  the  red  man. 
And  it  should  be  said  for  the  credit  of  Cooper's  subtlety,  a 
quality  rarely  attributed  to  him,  that  he  has  here  treated  the 
-ominous  theme  of  race-conflict  with  more  absolute  fineness 
than  any  other  American  writer.  Hawkeye  draws  a  careful 
line  between  the  Indian's  "gifts"  and  the  white  man's;  from 
his  philosophical  standpoint  the  murder  of  the  French  sen- 

'  tinel  is  inevitable,  since  the  Mohican  is  what  he  is, — yet  he 
does  not  approve  the  treachery,  nor  does  the  reader-  At  no 
time  in  the  story  does  Cooper  allow  the  reader's  sympathy  to 
go  out  unreservedly  to  any  Indian,  even  to  Uncas.  The  red 
man,  whether  Mohican  or  Huron,  is  represented  as  of  a  race 
that  cannot  share  the  white  man's  ideals,  and  is  therefore 
doomed.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  Le  Renard  Subtil  and 
Uncas  fall  in  love  with  Cora  because  she  has  negro  blood; 
that  significant  touch  marks  the  barrier  between  Uncas  and 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  79 

all  his  civilized  admirers.  Had  he  declared  his  passion,  Cora 
would  probably  have  rejected  him  with  pity,  but  with  little 
less  horror  than  she  felt  for  Le  Renard  Subtil.  Cooper  does 
the  Indians  justice;  a  little  reflection  shows  that  he  has  not 
neglected  their  savage  traits,  even  in  Uncas,  who  he  confesses 
frankly  is  a  romantic  ideal. 

Hawkeye  is  here  a  much  nobler  figure  than  the  old  hunter 
of  the  settlement.  He  exhibits  at  its  best  that  philosophy, 
mingled  fatalism  and  optimism,  which  is  inseparable  now 
from  his  memory.  He  shows  no  surliness  nor  discontent,  as 
in  The  Pioneers.  In  fact,  the  only  important  trait  common 
to  both  books  is  his  miraculous  skill  with  the  rifle.  But  what 
raises  him  to  heroic  proportions  in  this  story  is  his  love  for 
Uncas,  a  master  passion  that  quite  exceeds  his  faithful  friend-" 
ship  with  Chingachgook.  With  Uncas  dies  the  hope  of  the 
Indian  race,  and  the  cause  of  his  death  is  his  hopeless  worship 
of  the  white  girl.  With  him  dies  also  the  only  social  tie  that 
could  have  bound  Hawkeye  to  any  society;  for  Uncas,  as  he 
so  often  says,  is  almost  his  own  son.  As  Uncas  is  enlisted  in 
Cora's  service  by  his  love  for  her,  so  the  scout  follows,  more 
for  the  youth's  sake  than  for  any  other  reason,  and  few  pas 
sages  in  romance  record  more  perfect  chivalry  than  Hawk- 
eye's  return  to  the  Huron  camp  to  die  with  Uncas, — or  his 
offer  to  give  his  life  to  Le  Renard  in  exchange  for  Cora — an 
offer  that  had  in  mind  the  happiness  of  Uncas  as  well  as  of  the 
girl. 

The  pedant  that  Cooper  likes  to  introduce  into  these  stories 
is  in  this  case  a  strangely  effective  figure.  In  David  Gamut, 
the  singing  teacher,  Cooper  produces  a  travesty  on  the  New 
England  character  that  in  certain  picturesque  details  of  phy 
sique  and  horsemanship  recalls  Ichabod  Crane.  Neither  of 
the  two  great  New  York  writers  had  much  insight  into  the 
Yankee  nature;  perhaps  it  is  natural  that  they  should  treat  it 
with  most  tenderness  in  their  most  exaggerated  burlesques  of 


8o  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

it;  it  is  natural  to  make  amends  with  a  little  sympathy,  in 
the  midst  of  so  much  ridicule.  David  Gamut  is  an  admi 
rable  foil  for  Hawkeye,  whose  contempt  for  the  pitch-pipe, 
"that  useless  we'pon,"  at  first  blinds  him  to  the  singer's  few 
and  simple  virtues.  But  in  scenes  of  danger  a  constantly 
strengthened  impulse  to  take  up  real  arms  and  fight,  at  last 
wins  the  scout's  respect.  Gamut  also  brings  out  in  both  the 
Mohicans  and  the  Hurons  the  Indian  reverence  for  the  men 
tally  infirm,  and  Hawkeye  himself  is  not  unawed  by  the 
singer's  phraseology  and  his  rhapsodies.  A  large  share  of  the 
romance  of  the  story  settles  about  this  uncouth  figure  as  he 
stands  in  the  massacre  at  Fort  William  Henry,  actually  pro 
tecting  Cora  and  Alice  by  his  song. 

"  '  If  the  Jewish  boy  might  tame  the  evil  spirit  of  Saul  by 
the  sound  of  his  harp,  and  the  words  of  sacred  song,  it  may 
not  be  amiss,'  he  said,  'to  try  the  potency  of  music  here.' 

"Then  raising  his  voice  to  its  highest  tones,  he  poured  out 
a  strain  so  powerful  as  to  be  heard  even  amid  the  din  of  that 
bloody  field.  More  than  one  savage  rushed  towards  them, 
thinking  to  rifle  the  unprotected  sisters  of  their  attire  and  bear 
away  their  scalps;  but  when  they  found  this  strange  and  un 
moved  figure  riveted  to  his  post,  they  paused  to  listen.  As 
tonishment  soon  changed  to  admiration,  and  they  passed  on 
to  other  and  less  courageous  victims,  openly  expressing  their 
satisfaction  at  the  firmness  with  which  the  white  warrior  sang 
his  death  song." 

It  would  have  been  hard  to  improve  on  the  portraits  of 
Munro,  the  English  commander,  and  Montcalm.  The  first 
is  largely  a  fictitious  person,  elaborated  according  to  the 
needs  of  the  plot  and  Cooper's  idea  of  the  British  soldier  of 
the  period.  The  conflict  in  his  heart  between  his  duties  as 
commander  and  his  love  for  his  daughter  gives  him  a  place 
of  dignity  in  the  romance,  which  otherwise,  in  view  of  his  de 
feat  and  his  helplessness,  he  could  hardly  hold.  As  a  soldier 
he  is  of  course  brave,  but  not  astute;  Cooper  lets  him  stand 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  81 

for  the  usual  British  incapacity  to  cope  with  the  Indians, 
which  Braddock  so  fatally  illustrated.  Only  such  a  man 
would  have  summoned  his  daughters  to  the  besieged  fort, 
or  would  have  neglected  to  insist  on  Montcalm's  promised 
escort.  In  sharp  contrast  is  the  portrait  of  the  Frenchman, — 
a  beautiful  conception  of  old-world  grace  and  courtliness, 
which  Cooper  must  have  drawn  with  affection.  Yet  with  all 
Montcalm's  adroitness,  his  management  of  the  Indians  and 
his  tact  in  treating  with  a  conquered  foe, — the  reader  is  made 
to  feel  the  moral  slipperiness  which  the  hearty  Englishman 
resents  with  a  national  distrust  of  French  traditional  perfidy. 
The  trait  is  not  too  strong,  however,  for  the  charm  of  the 
character,  and  Cooper,  with  the  reserve  of  a  good  historian  as 
well  as  artist,  pronounces  no  final  judgment  on  Montcalm's 
conduct. 

The  massacre,  the  historical  point  about  which  the  romance 
revolves,  has  natural  opportunities  for  picturesqueness,  al 
most  for  pageantry  in  Scott's  vein.  But  the  bent  of  Cooper's 
genius  for  actual  rather  than  for  imagined  scenes  is  illustrated 
by  the  superiority  of  such  pictures  as  he  could  remember 
from  his  visits  to  Lake  Champlain,  over  even  the  description 
of  the  massacre.  The  ruins  of  the  fort,  revisited  by  the  scout 
and  his  party,  are  truer  to  the  mind  than  Hey  ward's  first 
glimpse  of  the  stronghold.  So  also  the  adventure  in  the  old 
burying-ground  and  the  encounter  with  the  unfortunate 
French  sentinel  by  the  bloody  pond, — such  pictures  as  the 
imagination  would  build  upon  actual  sight  of  those  places,— 
belong  not  to  history  at  all,  but  to  poetry  and  romance.  In 
these  two  latter  scenes,  as  in  most  of  the  night  descriptions, 
the  landscape  becomes  an  element  of  great  power,  almost  an 
actor  in  the  story.  Cooper  is  nearer  here  than  anywhere  else 
to  the  classical  awe  of  nature,  or  the  Wordsworthian  sense  of 
its  personality.  At  such  moments  he  is  most  the  poet;  he 
makes  the  dim  moonlit  forest  seem  to  close  in  upon  the  hu- 


82  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

man  adventure  and  supplant  it;  had  his  temperament  been 
less  sane,  so  much  susceptibility  would  have  endowed  the 
northern  pinewoods  with  sylvan  deities  out  of  hand. 


In  1822  Cooper  had  left  Scarsdale  and  taken  up  his  resi 
dence  in  New  York,  that  he  might  be  near  the  literary  world. 
The  first  years  of  his  success  had  brought  many  changes  in  his 
family  and  his  affairs.  His  mother  was  dead,  and  his  older 
son,  Fenimore,  had  died  in  1823.  The  next  year  his  second 
son,  Paul,  the  last  of  his  children,  was  born.  There  were  also 
four  daughters  living,  and  one  had  died  in  infancy.  His 
father's  estate,  through  various  causes,  had  depreciated  until 
its  value  was  too  little  to  provide  comfortably  for  the  novelist. 
The  returns  from  the  stories,  however,  had  placed  Cooper  in 
a  secure  financial  position.  Just  what  his  profits  were  is  not 
known,  but  with  such  popularity  as  he  enjoyed,  they  must 
have  been  great.  Had  he  been  able  to  control  by  copyright 
the  sales  in  foreign  countries,  his  income  would  have  been 
enormous;  for  as  fast  as  they  were  written  the  novels  were 
published  in  thirty-four  different  places  in  Europe,  and  were 
on  sale  in  every  European  bookshop.  It  is  not  known,  how 
ever,  what  arrangements  Cooper  made  even  with  his  Ameri 
can  publishers;  he  resembled  Scott  in  the  ability  to  keep  his 
secrets.  He  brought  out  The  Spy  at  his  own  expense,  since 
no  one  else  would  run  the  risk,  and  his  share  in  the  returns  of 
that  book  at  least  must  have  been  large. 

It  was  natural  for  a  person  of  his  mental  energy  to  turn  his 
thoughts  to  travel  on  the  first  opportunity.  His  naval  ex 
perience  had  afforded  him  little  knowledge  of  England  and 
less  of  the  Continent,  and  his  devotion  to  his  family,  a  dis 
tinguishing  trait,  for  some  time  prevented  him  from  going 
abroad  alone.  On  June  i,  1826,  he  sailed  for  Europe  with 
g  his  household,  family  and  servants,  intending  to  remain  away 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  83 

for  five  years;  he  did  not  return,  however,  till  November,  1833. 
These  years  of  travel  were  of  the  deepest  influence  upon  his 
later  career,  providing  him  with  material  for  those  criticisms 
of  the  old  world  and  the  new,  which  he  made  with  so  much 
more  vigor  than  tact,  and  which  accordingly  brought  him 
into  general  dislike.  Even  before  he  sailed  he  had  laid  a  few 
lasting  foundations  for  unpopularity.  His  sudden  rise  ex 
cited  the  envy  of  the  small  fry  of  letters,  and  his  peculiar  sen 
sitiveness  to  adverse  criticism  served  to  encourage  rather  than 
suppress  attacks  upon  him.  The  original  preface  to  The 
Pioneers  had  referred  to  the  race  of  critics  in  a  passage  which 
illustrates  his  strange  facility  in  making  enemies:  "I  should 
think  criticism  to  be  the  perfection  of  human  acquirements, 
did  there  not  exist  this  discrepancy  in  taste.  Just  as  I  have 
made  up  my  mind  to  adopt  the  very  sagacious  hints  of  one 
learned  Reviewer,  a  pamphlet  is  put  into  my  hands  contain 
ing  the  remarks  of  another,  who  condemns  all  that  his  rival 
praises,  and  praises  all  that  his  rival  condemns.  There  I 
am,  left  like  an  ass  between  two  locks  of  hay;  so  that  I  have 
determined  to  relinquish  my  animate  nature,  and  remain 
stationary,  like  a  lock  of  hay  between  two  asses."  For  the 
time,  however,  this  sharp  challenge  produced  no  uncomfort 
able  effect  for  Cooper;  his  greatness  as  an  author  was  a  matter 
of  pride  to  his  countrymen,  and  before  he  sailed  for  Europe  a 
literary  club  founded  by  himself  gave  him  a  dinner  in  New 
York,  at  which  Chancellor  Kent,  DeWitt  Clinton  and  other 
notable  guests  bore  testimony  to  the  esteem  in  which  he  was 
held.  That  occasion  practically  ended  the  purely  literary 
part  of  his  career, — the  happiest  part. 

His  time  abroad  was  passed  in  France,  Italy,  Switzerland 
and  Germany,  but  chiefly  in  France.  The  generous  admira 
tion  of  his  genius  which  the  French  showed  from  the  first,  of 
itself  would  have  made  his  stay  among  them  pleasant,  but  he 
was  still  more  attracted  by  the  courtesy  and  grace  of  their 


84  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

national  character,  and  especially  by  the  polished  life  of 
Paris.  If  the  French  admired  him  as  a  sort  of  romantic  ex 
pert  in  savagery,  he  found  in  their  capital  the  aristocratic  ex- 
quisiteness  of  breeding  that  had  always  been  his  social  ideal, 
though  his  own  manners  may  not  have  realized  it.  For  the 
two  years  following  1826  he  was  consul  at  Lyons,  but  the  post 
added  little  to  his  knowledge  of  the  French,  or  to  his  literary 
equipment.  Though  he  made  his  longest  stay  in  France, 
Cooper,  like  all  American  men  of  letters  since,  lost  his  heart 
completely  to  Italy.  It  is  perhaps  proof  of  the  poet  in  him, 
that  his  devotion  was  so  entire  to  a  country  that  then  had  so 
few  of  the  institutions  which  appeal  to  an  ardent  democrat. 

Cooper's  stay  in  England  was  very  short,  but  unfortunately 
it  was  long  enough  to  make  him  unduly  sensitive  to  insular 
ignorance  and  prejudice,  and  to  start  him  on  the  campaign  of 
controversy  which  was  the  curse  of  his  later  life.  Among  the 
most  cultured  Englishmen  he  found  a  cordial  reception,  or  at 
least  a  sincere  intention  of  it;  but  the  English  attitude  at  that 
moment  toward  America  and  Americans  was  so  condescend 
ing,  as  Cooper  knew  in  advance,  that  it  would  have  required 
more  than  British  tact  to  keep  his  temper  unruffled.  He  came 
to  England  on  his  travels  with  a  love  of  his  own  country  and  a 
resentment  of  English  injustice  that  must  have  been  quite 
unparalleled,  even  in  years  of  angry  feeling.  On  his  first  voy 
age,  in  1806,  two  American-born  comrades  had  been  seized 
and  pressed  into  the  British  service,  and  one  such  act  of 
tyranny  was  enough  to  inflame  Cooper  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
Even  the  praise  his  own  work  received  from  the  English  was 
usually  couched  in  terms  to  annoy  rather  than  please  him; 
knowing  the  individuality  of  his  own  genius,  he  naturally  did 
not  like  to  be  called  the  "American  Scott."  And  at  times 
English  criticism  of  him,  and  treatment  of  him  too,  passed 
quite  into  the  manner  of  insult. 

That  his  unpleasant  experience  was  in  part  at  least  his  own 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  85 

fault  would  be  proved  beyond  question,  even  if  we  had  no 
other  evidence,  by  Washington  living's  far  more  delightful 
relations  with  the  English.  Nathaniel  P.  Willis  also,  though 
he  made  himself  less  lovable  than  Irving,  was  equally  happy 
in  England.  Cooper  was  undoubtedly  looking  for  quarrels, 
and  he  had  a  strange  gift  for  finding  them.  His  habitual 
championing  of  his  country,  not  always  perhaps  in  the  best 
taste,  gave  him  the  reputation  of  being  prouder  of  American 
citizenship  than  of  the  authorship  of  his  novels.  It  became 
somewhat  dangerous  in  his  presence,  as  later  in  Lowell's,  to 
introduce  the  United  States  as  a  subject  in  any  degree  for 
controversy,  but  he  had  not  Lowell's  wit  nor  his  grace  to  keep 
the  argument  from  bitterness.  In  1828  he  published  his  No 
tions  of  the  Americans,  Picked  up  by  a  Traveling  Bachelor ,  a 
work  intended  to  set  Europeans  right  in  their  judgments  of 
the  republic.  It  has  been  well  pointed  out  that  no  American 
would  learn  anything  new  from  this  treatise,  nor  would  the 
prejudiced  foreigner  be  convinced  of  his  ignorance  by  the  ex 
treme  praise  of  the  author's  country.  Cooper's  statements,  as 
far  as  they  go,  show  an  unusual  knowledge  of  America,  and 
unusual  wisdom  in  the  predictions  of  her  future,  but  the  whole 
work  defeated  its  purpose  by  its  partisanship.  And  some  in 
cidental  disparagement  of  English  society  was  the  probable 
cause  of  the  ill-feeling  shown  towards  him  later  by  the  Eng 
lish  press.  In  all  the  novels  he  wrote  at  this  period  he  very 
unnecessarily  went  out  of  his  way  to  defend  America  or  to 
attack  its  critics.  This  practice  became  for  a  while  so  un 
pleasantly  common  with  him,  that  an  illustration  of  it  from 
The  Heidenmauer  will  not  be  without  value.  The  passage 
is  one  of  the  least  offensive  of  its  kind,  though  Cooper's  satire 
is  never  subtle  or  delicate : 

"Should  we  unheedingly  betray  the  foible  of  national 
vanity — that  foul  and  peculiar  blot  of  American  character! 
we  solicit  forgiveness;  urging,  hi  our  own  justification,  the 


86  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

aptitude  of  a  young  country  for  falling  insensibly  into  the  vein 
of  imitation,  and  praying  the  critical  observer  to  overlook  any 
blunders  in  this  way,  if  perchance  we  should  not  manifest 
that  felicity  of  execution  which  is  the  fruit  only  of  great  prac 
tice.  Hitherto  we  believe  that  our  modesty  cannot  justly  be 
impeached.  As  yet  we  have  left  the  cardinal  virtues  to  man 
kind  in  the  gross,  never,  to  our  knowledge,  having  written  of 
'American  courage,'  or  'American  honesty,'  nor  yet  of  'Amer 
ican  beauty,'  nor  haply  of  'American  manliness,'  nor  even  of 
'American  strength  of  arm,'  as  qualities  abstracted  and  not 
common  to  our  fellow-creatures;  but  have  been  content,  in 
the  unsophisticated  language  of  this  western  clime,  to  call 
virtue,  virtue — and  vice,  vice.  In  this  we  well  know  how 
much  we  have  fallen  short  of  numberless  but  nameless  clas 
sical  writers  of  our  time,  though  we  do  not  think  we  are  greatly 
losers  by  the  forbearance,  because  we  have  sufficient  proof 
that  when  we  wish  to  make  our  pages  unpleasant  to  the  for 
eigner,  we  can  effect  that  object  by  much  less  imposing  allu 
sions  to  national  merits;  since  we  have  good  reason  to  believe, 
there  exists  a  certain  querulous  class  of  readers  who  consider 
even  the  most  delicate  and  reserved  commendations  of  this 
western  world  as  so  much  praise  unreasonably  and  dishonestly 
abstracted  from  themselves." 

From  this  habitual  defending  of  his  country  against  British 
criticism  Cooper's  evil  fate  brought  him  to  defending  him 
self  against  his  own  countrymen.  There  were  many  Ameri 
cans  then  as  now,  who  for  various  reasons  were  not  so  sure  as 
he  of  republican  superiority  over  older  forms  of  government. 
And  in  1831,  when  Cooper  took  part  in  a  public  discussion  of 
the  relative  burden  of  taxation  in  France  and  America,  these 
critics  made  their  opinion  of  him  fairly  plain.  Lafayette, 
whom  Cooper  honored  out  of  patriotic  gratitude  as  well  as 
friendship,  had  referred  to  the  United  States  as  a  model  of 
inexpensive  government.  His  opponents  in  French  politics 
claimed  that  the  average  Frenchman  was  taxed  less  than  the 
average  American.  Cooper  felt  obliged  to  support  his  friend 
in  the  Letter  to  General  Lajayette,  a  pamphlet  which  stated  in 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  87 

detail  the  low  cost  of  the  American  government.  Some  polite 
interchange  of  argument  followed,  but  the  interest  was  sud 
denly  shifted  for  Cooper  by  the  interference  of  a  Mr.  Leavitt 
Harris,  an  American  long  resident  in  Russia,  who  for  some 
unexplained  reason  felt  impelled  to  rebuke  Cooper  by  denying 
the  accuracy  of  both  his  premises  and  his  deductions.  The 
American  government,  interested  in  the  discussion,  began 
collecting  information  from  the  different  parts  of  the  Union, 
without  distinction  between  Federal  and  local  taxes.  Against 
this  method  of  investigating  the  subject  Cooper  protested 
effectively,  on  the  ground  that  the  taxes  compared  in  the  two 
countries  should  logically  be  the  same.  This  protest  took 
the  form  of  an  open  letter,  printed  in  a  Philadelphia  paper  in 
December,  1832.  It  ended  the  controversy  as  far  as  Cooper 
was  concerned,  but  it  furnished  occasion  for  his  American 
critics  to  complain  that  his  patriotism  was  too  strenuous  and 
his  self-appointed  guardianship  of  the  United  States  egotisti 
cal.  He  could  well  feel  that  his  countrymen  had  failed  to 
appreciate  his  devotion.  The  years  abroad  had  been  passed 
in  a  kind  of  unofficial  service  of  democracy, — service  rich  in 
zeal,  if  not  in  tact;  the  end  of  his  travels  brought  him  home 
cruelly  wounded  by  what  he  considered  democracy's  rejec 
tion  of  hun. 

VI 

During  his  residence  abroad  Cooper  wrote  two  groups  of 
stories,  one  dealing  with  American  themes,  the  other  devoted 
to  an  attack  on  monarchical  institutions.  In  both  groups  the 
grade  of  excellence  varies  greatly.  By  far  the  most  famous 
novel  is  the  first  of  the  American  group,  The  Prairie,  pub 
lished  in  May,  1827.  This  is  the  conclusion  of  the  Leather- 
stocking  Tales,  describing  the  last  days  of  the  hunter,  as  The 
Pioneers  described  the  last  days  of  his  comrade  Chingach- 
gook.  In  artistic  value,  however,  there  is  no  comparison  be- 


88  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

tween  the  two  books;  The  Prairie  is  a  masterpiece,  though  the 
solidity  of  its  qualities  prevents  it  from  becoming  as  popular, 
perhaps,  as  the  more  brilliant  stories.  Cooper's  happy  skill 
in  tracing  a  character  into  old  age,  for  which  only  Thackeray 
in  one  instance,  Beatrix  Esmond,  gives  a  parallel,  is  exhibited 
here  in  the  portrait  of  Hawkeye,  now  a  venerable  trapper, 
but  undeniably  the  same  person  who  years  before  had  pro 
tected  Heyward  and  the  Munro  sisters.  This  character  alone 
sustains  the  popular  interest  in  the  story.  But  an  imagina 
tive  reader  finds  also  a  poetical  rendering  of  the  prairie  land 
scape,  a  kind  of  group-picture  of  elemental  man  with  nature 
for  a  background,  that  has  hardly  been  excelled  in  American 
literature. 

The  plot  is  of  the  simplest.  Ishmael  Bush,  the  squatter, 
is  moving  across  the  plains  to  find  a  home  suited  to  his  law 
less  nature;  like  Hawkeye,  though  for  a  different  reason,  he  is 
crowded  westward  by  civilization.  Abiram  White,  his  villain 
ous  brother-in-law,  has  persuaded  him  to  kidnap  Inez,  whom 
Middleton,  her  lover,  pursues;  and  the  bee-hunter  follows 
for  love  of  Ellen,  who  lives  with  Bush's  family  against  her 
will.  This  simple  story  is  complicated  to  a  slight  degree  by 
the  murder  of  Asa  Bush  and  the  temporary  suspicion  under 
which  the  trapper  falls,  by  the  hostile  Indians,  and  by  the 
prairie  fire.  As  usual  in  the  Leatherstocking  Tales,  Leather- 
stocking  himself  stands  outside  the  action,  lending  his  aid 
only  as  occasion  demands. 

Ishmael  Bush's  journey  gives  the  plot  the  ground  plan  of  a 
pursuit  and  rescue,  already  familiar  in  Cooper's  method.  But 
in  this  story  there  is  a  central  theme  of  rest  instead  of  motion. 
The  main  plot  is  framed  in, -so  to  speak,  between  the  vast 
stillness  of  the  deserted  prairie,  and  the  no  less  heroic  calm 
of  the  trapper's  age.  Bush  has  almost  reached  the  end  of  his 
pilgrimage  when  the  story  begins;  at  its  close  he  is  retracing 
his  steps  to  the  east.  The  solidity  of  nature,  massive  rocks 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  89 

and  wide  reaches, — an  effective  if  not  accurate  idea  of  the 
prairie, — take  the  place  of  the  stirring  witchery  of  the  forest, 
as  Bush  and  his  stalwart  sons  supplant  the  lithe  frontiersman 
of  the  earlier  stories.  The  movement  necessary  in  the  pic 
ture  for  the  sake  of  contrast  is  furnished  by  the  Sioux  and 
Pawnee  bands  on  their  horses,  and  by  the  fire;  but  in  both 
cases  the  effect  is  a  pictorial  illusion  of  motion, — the  somber 
plot  unfolds  in  practically  one  place,  without  haste  and  with 
out  change. 

The  squatter  and  his  family  are  perhaps  the  most  Titantic 
figures  in  Cooper — at  least  on  the  physical  side;  they  seem  to 
be  magnified  in  the  enchanted  prairie  light,  like  rude  gods  of 
the  early  world,  dim-souled,  misty  and  vast.  Had  they  rep 
resented  anything  in  the  story  commensurate  with  their  im 
posing  stature,  they  might  have  taken  their  place  with  the  un 
forgettable  peasant-figures  of  French  painting.  As  it  is,  their 
huge  clay  is  informed  with  dignity  only  when  they  are  roused 
by  their  brother's  murder;  until  that  time  they  are  open  to  a 
suspicion  of  meanness,  even  viciousness.  Cooper  redeems 
the  whole  family  by  Ishmael's  belated  sense  of  justice  to  the 
girls,  no  less  than  by  the  elemental  force  of  the  execution 
scene. 

Aside  from  the  novelty  of  putting  them  on  horseback, 
Cooper  says  nothing  new  of  his  Indians;  Sioux  and  Pawnee, 
they  are  the  familiar  Iroquois  and  Mohican,  Le  Renard  Sub 
til  and  Le  Gros  Serpent,  come  to  life  again.  Hard  Heart  is 
clearly  an  idealized  savage,  no  more  typical  than  Chingach- 
gook  or  Uncas,  but  equally  legitimate  in  a  romance — as  Wash 
ington  or  Paul  Jones  is  a  legitimate  character,  but  not  aver 
age,  of  their  race.  The  Pawnee  chief  gains  this  much  over 
Chingachgook,  that  he  enters  the  story  unannounced,  and 
unprotected  by  the  good  name  of  Hawkeye;  like  the  Mohi 
can,  he  serves  as  the  measure  of  Hawkeye's  character,  giving 
a  savage's  testimony  to  absolute  honesty  and  wisdom;  and  he 


go  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

is  necessary  in  the  plot  to  show  how  much  more  at  home  the 
old  hunter  is  with  red  men  than  with  white.  Leatherstock- 
ing  would  like  to  be  passive  in  any  struggle  between  Bush  and 
the  Sioux,  little  as  he  likes  the  latter,  because  to  his  high  sense 
of  justice  the  Indian  owns  the  land ;  and  much  more  does  his 
heart  go  to  the  young  Pawnee,  whose  principles  are  as  just  as 
his  own,  and  who  reverences  his  age. 

In  the  Doctor,  Owen  Bat,  Cooper  gives  us  another  of  his 
pedants — perhaps  his  most  tiresome  one.  He  and  Middleton 
and  the  bee-hunter,  and  Ellen  and  Inez,  are  involuntarily  neg 
lected  in  a  final  mental  summary  of  the  story.  The  mind 
holds  simply  to  the  picture  of  the  prairie,  with  the  group  of 
Bush's  caravan,  and  the  two  bands  of  Indians,  and  in  the 
center  of  the  picture  the  aged  Leatherstocking.  It  is  a  pic 
ture  of  elemental  man, — the  white  man  seeking  breathing- 
room  in  the  wildness,  and  the  Indian  warring  in  his  native 
savagery,  and  the  best  of  the  elemental  of  both  races  united 
in  Leatherstocking.  It  is  also  a  picture  of  age;  the  squatter 
has  been  driven  to  the  wall  by  progress,  and  he  sees  the  end 
of  his  kind  in  the  death  of  his  favorite  son;  the  Indians, 
though  mounted  on  the  wild  horses  of  the  plains,  are  already 
overtaken,  as  Leatherstocking  sees,  by  the  landhunter;  and 
Leatherstocking  himself  dies  beaten  in  his  long  flight  from 
the  influence  of  the  "settlements."  The  future  is  with  the 
less  significant  characters — the  pedantic  scientist,  the  bee- 
hunter,  and  the  young  army  officer. 

Age  makes  Leatherstocking  more  effective  in  some  of  his 
traits,  thought  it  takes  from  him  his  skill  and  his  physical 
prowess.  The  tendency  to  sermonize  on  all  occasions  seems 
natural  in  so  old  a  man,  and  the  slight  self-conceit  of  his 
youth  and  prime  are  buried  beneath  a  touching  humility,  that 
confesses  age  and  infirmity  with  shame.  With  the  instinct  of 
genius  Cooper  has  stripped  from  his  hero's  character  all  but 
the  rooted  fibers  that  time  could  not  touch;  he  is  brave,  simple 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  91 

and  honest, — and  nothing  more.  And  his  dying  answer  to  the 
imagined  roll-call  is  a  master-stroke  that  Thackeray  imitated, 
but  did  not  equal,  in  Colonel  Newcome's  "  Adsum!" 

Cooper's  instinct  for  plot  seems  to  desert  him  more  or  less 
when  he  chooses  subjects  apart  from  the  Leatherstocking 
frontier  or  the  sea.  In  the  novels  dealing  with  those  themes 
and  in  The  Spy,  though  his  constructive  art  is  open  to  much 
criticism,  he  usually  avails  himself  of  all  the  possibilities  of  the 
story;  there  may  be  insufficient  motive  or  explanation  of  the 
incidents,  but  little  could  be  added  to  the  incidents  them 
selves.  In  other  novels,  however,  and  in  his  later  work  gen 
erally,  there  is  often  a  rich  suggestion  in  plot  or  character  that 
goes  undeveloped  or  is  allowed  to  die  by  the  way,  as  though 
the  author  were  not  aware  of  its  significance.  The  Wept  o) 
Wish-ton-Wish,  published  in  November,  1829,  a  year  after 
The  Red  Rover,  illustrates  such  a  failure  to  make  the  most  of 
a  story.  The  plot  is  laid  in  New  England,  in  King  Philip's 
war,  and  its  simple  elements  might  have  given  Cooper  the 
material  for  a  very  striking  romance.  In  an  attack  upon  a 
Puritan  household  the  Indians  carry  off  a  little  girl.  An  In 
dian  boy,  who  has  been  kindly  treated  by  the  child's  father, 
falls  in  love  with  her,  and  when  they  both  grow  up,  marries 
her.  He  becomes  a  powerful  chief,  in  league  with  King 
Philip,  and  in  the  war  happens  to  attack  the  long-forgotten 
parents  of  his  white  bride.  In  gratitude  he  protects  them  and 
offers  to  restore  their  daughter,  but  she  has  become  an  Indian 
at  heart,  and  prefers  her  husband's  life.  This  is  the  intended 
theme  of  the  story,  and  the  title  refers  to  the  heroine,  the  child 
whose  loss  was  bemoaned  in  the  valley  of  Wish-ton-Wish. 
Many  white  children  were  captured  by  the  Indians  and 
adopted  into  their  tribes;  had  Cooper  elaborated  his  story 
with  this  theme  in  mind,  he  would  have  portrayed  a  phase 
of  the  early  Indian  warfare  which  has  not  yet  been  used  with 
effect  in  romance.  But  from  the  capture  of  the  little  girl,  in 


92  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  beginning  of  the  book,  to  her  reappearance  at  the  end, 
nothing  is  said  of  her;  the  story  occupies  itself  with  a  picture 
of  Puritan  life  in  the  New  England  frontier — a  subject  Cooper 
was  eminently  unfitted  to  deal  with.  Even  if  he  had  been 
fitted,  however,  the  result  would  have  been  the  same;  it  is 
difficult  to  find  any  direction  in  the  movement  of  the  plot,  and 
the  story  has  apparently  neither  hero  nor  heroine.  This  un 
certainty  of  interest  is  reflected  in  the  various  titles  of  the 
novel, — in  England,  The  Borderers,  and  in  France,  The  Puri 
tans  o)  America,  or  the  Valley  of  Wish-ton-Wish. 

Something  has  been  said  already  of  Cooper's  deficient 
sympathy  with  the  Puritan  character.  His  biographer  has 
explained  this  by  the  paradox  that  he  was  himself  too  like  the 
Puritans  to  do  them  justice.  The  explanation  is  not  com 
pletely  satisfactory,  for  in  an  essential  quality  of  Puritanism 
Cooper  was  as  completely  lacking  as  Irving;  he  was  in  no  re 
spect  a  visionary  nor  a  dreamer.  In  so  far  as  Puritanism  co 
incided  with  his  nature,  he  portrayed  it  admirably  in  this 
novel;  he  lets  the  reader  see  the  practical  vigor,  the  exalted 
piety,  and  the  domestic  affection  of  Mark  Heathcote  and  his 
comrades,  for  these  virtues  he  can  recognize,  as  he  could  rec 
ognize  the  common  piety  and  the  common  sense  of  The  Pil 
grim's  Progress.  But  the  mastering  vision  that  burns  like 
flame  in  the  Puritan  temper,  impelling  it  to  strenuous  action, 
was  entirely  hidden  from  Cooper,  if  we  can  judge  by  his 
writings.  Mark  Heathcote,  living  in  the  wilderness  to  enjoy 
freedom  in  his  beliefs,  is  presented  as  a  fanatic,  whose  only 
claim  on  our  sympathies  is  his  efficient  soldier-quality  when 
there  is  fighting  to  do.  So  little  did  Cooper  understand  the 
type,  that  he  actually  divorced  warfare  and  religion  in  his 
conception  of  the  Puritan,  as  though  Cromwell  and  his  men 
fought  for  earthly  purposes,  which  they  would  try  to  regret 
when  they  went  to  church.  It  is  in  this  Quaker-like  aspect 
that  Mark  Heathcote  is  described:  "Even  the  gentle  and  or- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  93 

dinarily  little  observant  Ruth  might  trace  the  kindling  of  the 
eye,  the  knitting  of  the  brow,  and  the  flushing  of  his  pale  and 
furrowed  cheek,  as  the  murderous  conflicts  of  the  civil  wars 
became  the  themes  of  the  ancient  soldier's  discourse.  There 
were  moments  when  religious  submission,  and  we  had  almost 
said  religious  precepts,  were  partially  forgotten,  as  he  ex 
plained  to  his  attentive  son  and  listening  grandchild,  the  na 
ture  of  the  onset,  or  the  quality  and  dignity  of  the  retreat.  At 
such  times,  his  still  nervous  hand  would  even  wield  the  blade, 
in  order  to  instruct  the  latter  in  its  uses,  and  many  a  long  win 
ter  evening  was  passed  in  thus  indirectly  teaching  an  art  that 
was  so  much  at  variance  with  the  mandates  of  his  Divine 
Master." 

Grave  as  is  this  misunderstanding  of  the  Puritans,  Cooper 
does  the  type  a  more  serious  injustice  in  the  virtual  betrayal  of 
the  Indian  chief  who  had  brought  back  his  wife  to  her  parents. 
The  hypocrisy  of  the  white  men,  led  by  their  pastor,  the  Rev 
erend  Meek  Wolfe,  inspires  a  horror  that  would  have  pre 
vented  the  popularity  of  the  story,  even  if  it  had  been  founded 
in  truth.  The  only  portion  of  the  novel  that  repays  reading 
now  is  the  description  of  the  attack  on  the  blockhouse,  and 
the  escape  of  the  defenders  by  hiding  in  the  well. 

The  last  of  the  novels  on  American  subjects  written  abroad, 
was  The  Water  Witch,  published  in  December,  1830.  It  has 
the  merits  of  Cooper's  other  sea  stories,  to  a  moderate  extent, 
and  in  the  destruction  of  the  burning  warship  and  the  ad 
ventures  of  the  survivors  on  the  raft,  it  has  a  moment  of  gran 
deur,  but  neither  its  plot  nor  its  characters  are  at  all  impor 
tant.  Evidently  it  is  a  tame  replica  of  The  Red  Rover,  with  the 
substitution  of  a  smuggler,  the  Skinner  of  the  Seas,  for  the 
pirate.  There  is  the  same  phenomenally  fast  and  graceful 
outlaw  ship,  the  same  magic  in  its  handling,  a  secret  relation 
ship  to  be  discovered  in  the  final  chapter,  and  a  girl  in  love 
with  the  outlaw,  disguised  in  his  ship  as  a  youth.  Since  the 


94  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

hero  is  a  smuggler,  not  a  pirate,  the  story  would  be  quite 
bloodless  if  the  patriotic  element  were  not  introduced, — with 
some  effort, — by  arranging  a  fight  between  the  British  and 
French  cruisers.  The  main  interest  is  in  the  smugglers  skill 
in  eluding  his  pursuers,  at  sea  and  in  the  harbor  waters  of  New 
York;  it  might  be  added  that  this  real  interest  is  lessened  by 
the  mummery  which  is  meant  to  wrap  the  outlaw's  ship  in 
mystery. 

The  second  class  of  novels  Cooper  wrote  in  Europe  includes 
The  Bravo,  published  in  November,  1831,  The  Heidenmauer, 
published  in  September  1832,  and  The  Headsman,  published 
in  October,  1833.  These  stories  represent  old  world  forms 'of 
government  or  social  conditions,  in  contrast  with  the  repub 
lican  ideals  of  America.  All  three  suffer  from  the  purpose 
that  inspired  them.  Cooper  could  tell  a  story,  apparently, 
only  when  he  gave  himself  up  to  it  without  reserve;  to  make  it 
serve  a  didactic  purpose  was  for  him  to  confuse  and  enfeeble 
the  plot.  Further,  he  had  chosen  to  write  about  times  well 
back  in  history,  trusting  to  his  reading  and  to  his  acquaint 
ance  with  the  scenes  to  make  the  stories  faithful  pictures  of  the 
past.  But  he  was  by  nature  no  scholar;  he  was  neither  widely 
nor  deeply  read;  and  the  Venice  and  Germany  and  Switzer 
land  of  these  three  books  are  more  convincing  of  his  trust  in 
the  democratic  ideal  than  of  his  competence  to  judge  old  in 
stitutions.  Especially  is  this  true  in  the  second  and  third  of 
the  series;  in  the  first  he  could  make  so  general  a  use  of  the 
modern  Venice  as  a  stimulus  to  the  imagination,  that  he  seems 
to  speak  with  considerable  authority  of  its  medieval  condition. 

On  other  accounts  also  The  Bravo  is  to  be  reckoned  the  best 
of  these  novels.  Its  subject,  the  despotism  of  a  city  pretend 
ing  to  freedom,  could  easily  be  embroidered  with  striking 
scenes  of  palace,  prison  and  lagoon, — and  the  pictorial  sense 
in  Cooper's  genius  was  never  appealed  to  in  vain.  As  a  pan 
orama  of  Venetian  life,  then,  the  story  has  undoubted  power, 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  95 

though  the  portrait,  as  far  as  it  includes  human  character, 
may  be  quite  incorrect.  The  social  fabric  of  the  city,  under 
mined  in  all  directions  by  treachery  and  concealed  distrust, 
makes  a  consistent  picture;  its  effect  lies  not  only  in  the  pub 
licly  recognized  career  of  the  assassin,  in  the  dark  figure  of  the 
Bravo  and  the  foul  murder  of  the  fisherman,  Antonio,  but 
still  more  in  the  unstable  household  of  Signer  Gradenigo,  who 
sets  spies  on  his  own  son,  for  good  reasons,  and  is  himself  dis 
covered  in  his  designs  on  his  ward.  In  the  treatment  of  all 
grades  of  society  Cooper  is  here  unusually  successful;  the 
gondoliers,  the  shopkeepers  and  minor  citizens,  are  realized 
as  faithfully  as  their  lords,  and  the  Doge  and  the  Council  of 
Three  are  portrayed  in  their  official  state  with  a  remarkable 
effect  of  actuality,  whatever  they  may  owe  to  imagination. 
But  the  chief  power  of  the  story  is  in  the  tragic  plot.  The  in 
evitable  fate  of  the  Bravo,  used  by  all  rivals  to  spy  on  each 
other,  and  safe  from  them  only  by  virtue  of  the  secrets  he 
knows,  becomes  plain  to  the  reader  by  a  gradual  enlighten 
ment,  so  that  the  story  gathers  gloom  as  it  proceeds;  and  the 
realization  that  the  course  of  life  so  surely  fatal  was  never  his 
choice,  but  was  the  price,  vainly  paid,  of  his  innocent  father's 
freedom,  completes  the  indictment  against  a  social  system 
that  sacrificed  him  to  its  selfish  fears.  The  Bravo,  in  his  pa 
tience  and  the  injustice  of  his  evil  fame,  is  akin  to  Harvey 
Birch;  for  patriotism  is  substituted  in  his  case  hatred  of  his 
city,  a  natural  result  that  Cooper  means  to  indicate  as  a  very 
real  part  of  his  tragic  fate.  Not  to  examine  too  closely  a  novel 
which  has  no  claim  to  be  considered  masterly,  it  is  enough  to 
mention  its  chief  fault  for  modern  readers,  the  tedious  extent 
to  which  Cooper  explains  to  his  ignorant  countrymen  the 
characteristics  and  customs  of  Venice.  It  seems  improbable 
that  even  in  1831  the  average  American  reader  needed  to  be 
told  that  Venice  is  built  practically  in  the  water,  with  canals 
for  streets  and  gondolas  for  vehicles;  nor  did  he  probably  need 


96  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

to  be  told  how  a  gondola  is  propelled.  It  may  be  suspected 
that  those  of  Cooper's  countrymen  who  did  need  his  instruc 
tion,  never  read  his  book. 

The  Heidenmauer  is  among  its  author's  most  complete 
failures,  though  it  is  not  the  least  readable  of  his  books.  It 
deals  with  the  monastic  orders  shortly  after  Luther's  attacks, 
when  the  church  of  Rome  had  still  a  strong  though  a  failing 
grasp  on  Germany.  In  plot  the  story  is  feeble,  its  only  im 
portant  incident  being  the  destruction  of  a  monastery  by  a 
heretic  baron.  One  of  the  baron's  followers,  the  hero,  if  the 
story  has  any,  is  supposed  to  have  perished  in  the  burning 
chapel,  and  the  most  moving  scene  in  the  book  tells  of  his 
stricken  mother's  vain  pleadings  with  the  church  for  prayers 
for  his  soul.  As  he  has  not  been  killed  at  all,  however,  the 
church's  pride  suffers  an  anticlimax.  The  only  original  char 
acter  is  the  hermit,  who  having  committed  sacrilege  in  a 
youthful  enthusiasm  for  Protestantism,  is  haunted  by  the 
wrath  of  God,  a  lifelong  prey  to  remorse.  In  so  rambling  and 
ineffective  a  story  it  is  hard  to  see  the  author's  intention,  but 
the  hermit  brings  into  relief  the  failure  of  the  religious  order 
about  him,  both  by  his  superstition,  and  by  its  inability  or 
unwillingness  to  recover  such  a  penitent  to  the  sane  uses  of 
life. 

The  Headsman  is  an  excellent  example  of  wasted  oppor 
tunity  in  plot.  Intended  to  record  the  tyranny  of  local  cus 
toms  in  an  undemocratic  society,  the  story  unfolds,  after  a 
somewhat  tiresome  introduction,  in  strong  outlines  which  ad 
mirably  develop  its  theme,  and  which  promise  to  be  as  logi 
cally  relentless  as  a  Greek  tragedy.  The  canton  in  which  the 
plot  is  laid  has  a  hereditary  executioner.  The  office,  once 
considered  an  honor,  has  become  an  unspeakable  disgrace, 
and  the  unhappy  heir  to  it  in  each  generation  would  escape  it 
if  it  were  not  compulsory.  In  spite  of  his  tediousness,  Cooper 
makes  the  horror  of  the  headsman  and  his  family  entirely 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  97 

convincing  in  the  first  chapters  of  the  novel;  from  this  point 
the  plot  begins.  A  young  soldier  saves  the  life  of  a  beautiful 
girl  and  her  father,  winning  the  girl's  love  and  the  father's  ap 
proval.  All  three  are  present  at  a  wedding  which  terminates 
abruptly  in  the  discovery  that  the  bride  is  the  headsman's 
daughter.  Unwilling  to  bear  the  public  disgrace  of  union  with 
the  family,  the  bridegroom  jilts  her  at  the  altar.  The  young 
soldier,  strangely  disturbed  by  the  incident,  tells  his  betrothed, 
as  a  matter  of  honor,  that  she  cannot  marry  him,  for  he  is  the 
headsman's  son,  supposed  dead,  but  really  seeking  to  avoid 
the  dreadful  inheritance.  With  this  information,  when  the 
unchivalrous  bridegroom  is  found  murdered,  suspicion  natu 
rally  falls  on  the  young  soldier.  Had  he  been  guilty  of  the 
crime  and  been  beheaded  by  his  father,  or  had  his  father  been 
the  murderer,  for  him  to  execute,  the  plot  would  have  been 
complete.  But  at  this  point  Cooper  seems  to  lose  sight  of  his 
original  purpose.  It  turns  out  that  none  of  the  important 
characters  had  anything  to  do  with  the  murder,  and  the  young 
soldier  is  discovered  to  be,  not  the  headsman's  son,  but  the 
heir  of  a  noble  family.  The  story  is  worth  reading  for  the 
excitement  of  this  rapid  descent  in  the  last  chapters. 

VII 

Cooper  returned  to  America  November  5,  1833,  and  took 
up  his  residence  again  in  New  York.  His  unfortunate  ex 
periences  with  his  countrymen  while  abroad  made  false  im 
pressions  inevitable  to  his  oversensitive  disposition,  and  he 
probably  threw  away  the  one  chance  he  had  to  recover  a 
friendlier  point  of  view.  A  public  dinner  was  offered  him,  a 
compliment  similar  to  that  he  had  received  at  his  departure; 
but  prompt  as  the  invitation  was — within  two  weeks  of  his 
landing — he  had  already  fancied  himself  slighted  or  treated 
with  coldness  by  his  old  friends.  Perhaps  for  this  reason  he 
declined  the  honor  now  sincerely  offered.  It  is  hard  to  under- 


98  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

stand  his  state  of  mind.  Apparently  he  had  brooded  upon 
American  criticisms  of  him  until  he  could  accept  nothing  but 
aggressive  warfare  with  his  countrymen.  He  was  so  much  a 
political  and  social  idealist  that  he  mentally  severed  all  con 
nection  between  those  fellow-countrymen  whom  he  had  come 
almost  to  despise,  and  his  country,  which  he  worshiped.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  the  rapid  changes  in  the  United  States 
during  his  absence  were  of  a  nature  to  estrange  him;  on  his 
return  he  found  great  commercial  activity, — and  very  natu 
rally,  no  proportionate  advance  in  culture  or  art.  But  the 
willingness  he  had  shown  in  the  preface  to  The  Pioneers  to 
start  controversy  and  to  rouse  permanent  enemies,  makes 
other  explanations  unnecessary.  The  most  ardent  admirer 
of  Cooper  must  admit  that  even  if  he  had  not  gone  abroad, 
and  if  the  country  had  not  changed,  he  would  probably  have 
got  himself  into  trouble.  It  is  impossible  to  form  an  accurate 
idea  of  his  personality,  so  far  as  details  of  manner  are  con 
cerned,  for  the  most  reliable  of  those  who  described  him  were 
usually  critics  or  admirers,  and  the  accounts  contradict  one 
another.  Scott,  whom  he  met  in  Paris,  thought  him  rude,  and 
the  English  record  in  general  follows  Barry  Cornwall's  im 
pression  that  he  was  boorish.  Yet  the  reverse  was  said  of 
him  by  English  acquaintances,  and  there  were  many  friends 
in  America  to  bear  witness  to  his  warm  heart  and  his  generous 
loyalty.  It  is  fairly  safe,  however,  to  concede  that  he  was  un 
pleasantly  rough  in  manner  when  he  returned  to  his  country, 
and  few  men,  if  any,  were  attracted  to  him  through  a  personal 
encounter.  And  in  his  polemical  writings  he  had  a  mania  for 
expressing  disagreeable  truths;  that  they  were  truths,  cannot 
be  denied,  for  his  sense  of  justice  was  admirable.  Indeed,  he 
distributed  his  energies  equally  among  all  nations  and  parties 
which  he  was  in  position  to  know — a  kind  of  muck-raker  at 
large.  If  in  his  later  years  he  becomes  an  unpleasant  figure, 
to  which  national  pride  would  prefer  not  to  point,  it  is  well  to 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  99 

keep  in  mind,  as  compensating  virtues,  his  real  love  of  justice 
and  his  high  ideals  for  his  country. 

Most  of  the  physical  descriptions  of  him  date  from  about 
this  time,  when  he  was  abroad  or  soon  after  his  return.  He 
was  tall  and  stalwart,  the  most  athletic  of  American  authors. 
In  the  foreign  accounts  of  him  some  allowance  must  be  made 
for  the  disposition  to  find  the  frontiersman  in  every  American, 
but  even  with  that  allowance  we  can  well  believe  that  he  did 
appear  somewhat  out  of  place  in  continental  drawing-rooms. 
The  impression  which  he  gave  of  great  strength  and  energy 
made  him  seem  as  restless  as  a  wild  animal  yearning  for  out 
door  freedom.  The  familiar  portrait  of  him  is  in  accord  with 
the  written  description ;  his  eye  was  deep,  slow  moving  and  not 
very  bright,  and  his  heavy  features,  in  repose  almost  stolid, 
suggested  a  peasant  ancestry. 

His  actual  warfare  with  the  American  public  began  in  his 
Letter  to  His  Countrymen,  which  appeared  in  June,  1834. 
This  pamphlet  was  a  reply  to  adverse  criticisms  in  several 
New  York  papers,  of  The  Bravo  and  others  of  his  books.  In 
addition  to  the  uselessness  of  such  a  reply  under  any  circum 
stances,  it  was  not  at  all  clear  that  Cooper  had  a  good  case. 
But  his  evil  star  led  him  by  a  surprisingly  roundabout  course 
to  include  a  discussion  of  the  quarrel  then  in  progress  between 
President  Jackson  and  the  Senate,  and  he  managed  by  an 
adroit  exhibition  of  his  impartiality  to  wound  the  feelings  of 
both  legislature  and  executive.  This  letter  made  the  author 
a  subject  of  national  debate.  The  press  turned  on  him  the 
disgraceful  vigor  of  its  denunciations,  at  once  squaring  all  old 
scores,  and  his  onslaught  upon  the  politicians  made  for  him  a 
generous  harvest  of  really  powerful  enemies.  The  sale  of  his 
books  is  said  to  have  fallen  off,  though  even  his  bitterest  op 
ponents  occasionally  honored  the  genius  apart  from  the  man. 
But  whatever  might  be  the  personal  loss,  Cooper  had  now 
committed  himself  single-handed  to  the  unequal  struggle,  and 


loo  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

he  opened  a  general  attack  on  all  enemies  in  The  Manikins, 
in  July,  1835. 

This  satire,  describing  the  visits  of  John  Goldencalf  and 
his  comrades  to  the  countries  of  Leaphigh  and  Leaplow — 
England  and  America — has  been  pronounced  unreadable. 
It  is  certainly  tedious  on  the  whole,  and  there  is  no  reason  why 
it  should  be  read  to-day.  It  is  surprising,  however,  that  it  was 
not  read  when  it  appeared;  the  excitement  of  the  moment 
would  naturally  have  caused  Cooper's  opponents  to  look  into 
it.  The  fact  seems  to  be,  however,  that  it  was  a  flat  failure. 
Cooper  had  no  gift  for  satire,  and  his  conversation  is  inva 
riably  the  weakest  thing  in  his  novels;  as  most  of  his  satire  is 
conveyed  through  the  discourse  of  Dr.  Reasono  and  Noah 
Poke  and  Goldencalf,  and  as  much  of  their  discussion  has  no 
interest  to-day,  the  book  is  generally  dull.  But  when  Cooper 
drops  the  conversation  and  hits  out  in  his  Brobdingnagian 
vein  of  satire,  the  result  is  often  funny  and  makes  excellent 
reading.  The  introduction  contains  what  ammunition  was 
left  over  from  the  volume,  and  its  painstaking  thoroughness 
is  delightful. 

-  Having  passed  from  a  serious  difference  of  opinion  with 
some  of  his  countrymen  to  a  condition  of  conflict  with  all  of 
them,  Cooper  now  had  the  misfortune  to  localize  the  conflict 
in  his  native  village.  On  his  return  from  Europe  he  had  spent 
a  few  winters  in  New  York,  but  during  the  summers  he  re 
stored  his  father's  house,  which  had  fallen  into  ruin,  and  when 
the  repairs  were  completed  he  took  up  his  residence  at  Coop- 
erstown  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  His  father  had  owned  a  piece 
of  land  called  Three  Mile  Point,  a  convenient  excursion  place, 
which  with  the  permission  of  the  estate  had  been  used  by 
the  public  until  they  had  forgotten  it  was  private  property. 
Cooper,  as  executor  of  the  estate,  took  occasion  to  remind  his 
townspeople  of  the  true  ownership  of  the  Point,  though  he  in 
terfered  in  no  way  with  their  use  of  it.  They  paid  no  atten- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  lot 

tion  to  him,  and  in  1837,  when  a  building  erected  by  the 
community  needed  repairs,  they  sent  workmen  to  the  Point 
without  asking  his  permission,  and  incidentally  they  destroyed 
a  tree  that  he  especially  prized.  He  sent  a  notice  to  a  local 
paper,  protesting  against  the  destruction  of  trees  on  the  prop 
erty,  but  making  no  objection  otherwise  to  the  public  use  of 
it.  Before  his  notice  was  published  the  attitude  of  the  com 
munity  on  the  subject  proved  so  hostile  that  he  substituted  a 
plain  warning  against  trespassing,  in  which  he  stated  his  rigid 
intention  to  enforce  his  title  to  the  estate.  The  village  had 
actually  got  it  into  its  head  that  the  Point  had  been  given  to  it 
by  Cooper's  father.  A  mass-meeting  was  called,  at  which  a 
series  of  ridiculous  resolutions  were  passed,  in  which  the  pub 
lic  ownership  of  the  Point  was  claimed,  Cooper's  conduct  was 
described  as  such  as  to  render  him  odious  to  a  great  portion  of 
the  community,  and  the  trustees  of  the  Franklin  Library,  in 
the  village,  were  requested  to  remove  from  the  building  all 
books  of  which  he  was  author.  Cooper  replied  in  two  letters 
which  completely  ended  the  dispute  so  far  as  Cooperstown 
was  concerned.  The  citizens  soon  perceived  their  mistaken 
position,  though  they  thought  no  better  of  Cooper  personally; 
he  on  his  part  considered  the  mass-meeting  as  in  no  respect 
representative  of  the  good  sense  of  the  village. 

Out  of  this  insignificant  quarrel  grew  the  libel  suits  against 
the  press,  which  form  such  an  interesting  if  not  very  profitable 
episode  in  Cooper's  career.  The  Chenango  Telegraph,  in 
Norwich,  Chenango  County,  published  an  account  of  the  dis 
pute,  with  uncomplimentary  references  to  Cooper.  The  Whig 
newspaper  of  Cooperstown  reprinted  the  article,  with  the  ad 
dition  of  the  village's  side  of  the  case,  stated  without  regard 
to  the  facts  that  Cooper  had  made  plain.  The  editor  refused 
to  investigate  the  truth  of  his  own  statements,  or  to  retract 
them,  and  the  novelist  brought  a  suit  for  libel,  which  he  won 
in  May,  1839.  He  conducted  his  own  case  in  this  and  most 


102  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

of  the  later  suits,  with  the  assistance  of  his  nephew,  Richard 
Cooper;  and  he  discovered  a  skill  in  persuading  a  jury  that 
was  nothing  short  of  remarkable.  It  was  typical  of  his  cour 
age  that  he  made  his  hard  fight  alone,  with  no  assistance  or 
encouragement  from  any  public  sympathy;  the  juries  that 
gave  him  the  decisions  did  so  reluctantly,  as  the  small  dam 
ages  in  each  case  showed.  He  won  simply  on  the  justice  of 
his  plea. 

The  details  of  the  famous  suits  cannot  be  given  here.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  Cooper  brought  suit  against  the  Chenango 
Telegraph;  the  Oneida  Whig,  of  Utica;  the  Evening  Signal,  of 
New  York;  the  Courier  and  Enquirer;  the  Albany  Journal; 
the  Tribune,  of  New  York;  and  the  Commercial  Advertiser,  of 
the  same  city.  All  of  these  suits  Cooper  won,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  that  against  the  Courier  and  Enquirer,  in  which 
case  the  jury  disagreed  on  two  trials.  The  suits  that  attracted 
most  attention  were  those  against  the  Albany  Evening  Journal, 
The  famous  editor,  Thurlow  Weed,  committed  himself  to  a 
reckless  policy  of  reprinting  attacks  on  Cooper  from  other 
papers,  and  Cooper  systematically  won  damages  from  the 
Journal  for  every  libellous  reprint.  Such  a  proceeding  was 
too  expensive  even  for  the  editor's  enmity  toward  Cooper, 
and  in  December,  1842,  he  retracted  all  that  he  had  published 
against  the  novelist.  These  suits,  extending  over  three  or 
four  years,  proved  Cooper's  righting  capacity  and  his  sound 
sense  in  legal  matters,  but  they  set  him  completely  outside 
the  sympathy  of  the  country  at  large,  and  the  editors  whom  he 
convicted  of  libel  were  apparently  unconvinced  of  any  es 
sential  untruth  in  what  they  had  said.  His  very  success  nat 
urally  increased  their  prejudice. 

During  the  Mile  Point  episode  Cooper  determined  to  write 
a  story  which  should  present  a  frank  picture  of  American  so 
ciety  as  he  saw  it.  The  work  was  not  to  be  a  satire,  but  as  it 
was  inspired  by  the  author's  quarrel  with  his  fellow-townsmen, 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  103 

it  would  hardly  be  pleasant  in  tone.  At  first  the  plan  in 
cluded  only  the  introduction  of  a  group  of  foreigners  to  the 
United  States,  and  their  unbiased  impressions  of  the  land; 
but  the  author's  friends  advised  him  to  describe  the  voyage  to 
America  at  some  length.  The  suggestion  resulted  in  the  pub 
lication  of  two  books,  one  in  August,  1837,  Homeward  Bound, 
dealing  with  the  voyage,  and  the  other  in  November,  Home 
as  Found,  giving  the  study  of  the  country.  The  characters 
are  the  same  in  both,  and  the  series  makes  practically  one 
story,  telling  of  the  return  of  Mr.  Edward  Emngham,  his 
daughter  and  his  cousin  to  their  home  at  Templeton  Hall,  on 
Otsego  Lake.  The  story  of  the  voyage  is  an  admirable  tale 
of  adventure.  The  ship  is  pursued  by  an  English  war  vessel, 
is  disabled  in  a  storm,  drives  on  the  African  coast  and  is  in 
desperate  peril  from  Arab  brigands.  So  exciting  are  the 
events,  that  the  interpolated  discussions  of  America  do  not 
seriously  interrupt  them,  and  the  novel  stands  quite  distinct 
from  its  sequel,  as  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  his  minor 
writings.  Home  as  Found,  however,  is  among  his  least  for 
tunate  works.  Not  only  does  it  fail  to  interest  as  a  story, 
but  it  betrays  a  temporary  lack  of  all  reason  and  sense  on 
Cooper's  part.  His  fellow-townspeople  had  long  ago  called 
his  father's  house  Templeton  Hall,  in  compliment  to  his  de 
scription  of  it  in  The  Pioneers,  and  when  he  called  the  Emng 
ham  home  by  that  name,  and  described  it  as  exactly  the  same 
house,  even  to  its  interior  decoration  and  furniture,  it  is  in 
credible  that  he  should  not  have  expected  his  readers  to 
identify  the  Effinghams  with  himself.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  this  identification,  which  was  made  at  once,  completely 
nullified  whatever  force  the  book  might  have  had,  and  made 
the  author,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  indefensibly  ridiculous. 
The  impression  that  men  like  Thurlow  Weed  and  Horace 
Greeley  must  have  derived  from  the  book  explains  perhaps 
their  later  unchanged  contempt  for  Cooper's  character. 


104  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

This  capital  error  in  the  book  makes  its  other  shortcomings 
insignificant.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  unreasonableness  that  marks 
almost  every  criticism  of  America  in  both  volumes,  there  is  a 
kind  of  surface  cleverness  here  and  there  which  must  have 
been  exasperating  to  the  subjects  of  the  attack.  Mr.  Stead 
fast  Dodge,  the  editor,  is  such  a  composite  portrait  of  his 
profession  as  Cooper's  wrath  could  picture;  his  name  was 
significant,  for  ''there  was  a  singular  profession  of  steadiness 
of  purpose  and  of  high  principle  about  him,  all  of  which 
vanished  in  Dodge  at  the  close."  He  is  the  chief  direct  sub 
ject  of  the  satire,  and  the  ruthless  treatment  he  receives  at 
Cooper's  hands  is  illustrated  by  this  conversation  with  Mr. 
Blunt,  the  Englishman  in  Homeward  Bound. 

"  '  If  one  man  be  as  good  as  another,'  said  Mr.  Blunt,  .  .  . 
1  will  you  do  me  the  favor  to  inform  me,  why  the  country  puts 
itself  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  the  annual  elections  ? ' 

'"Elections,  sir!  In  what  manner  could  free  institutions 
flourish  or  be  maintained,  without  constantly  appealing  to 
the  people,  the  only  true  source  of  power  ? ' 

"  '  To  this  I  make  no  objection,  Mr.  Dodge,'  returned  the 
young  man,  smiling;  'but  why  an  election;  if  one  man  is  as 
good  as  another,  a  lottery  would  be  cheaper,  easier,  and  sooner 
settled.  Why  an  election,  or  even  a  lottery  at  all  ?  Why  not 
choose  the  President  as  the  Persians  chose  their  king,  by  the 
neighing  of  a  horse?' 

"  '  This  would  be  indeed  an  extraordinary  mode  of  pro 
ceeding  for  an  intelligent  and  virtuous  people,  Mr.  Blunt;  and 
I  must  take  the  liberty  of  saying  that  I  suspect  you  of  pleas 
antry.  If  you  wish  an  answer,  I  will  say,  at  once,  by  such  a 
process  we  might  get  a  knave,  or  a  fool,  or  a  traitor.' 

"'How,  Mr.  Dodge!  I  did  not  expect  this  character  of 
the  country  from  you !  Are  the  Americans  then  all  fools,  or 
knaves,  or  traitors  ? ' 

"  '  If  you  intend  to  travel  much  in  our  country,  sir,  I  would 
advise  great  caution  in  throwing  out  such  an  insinuation,  for 
it  would  be  apt  to  meet  with  a  very  general  and  unquali 
fied  disapprobation.  Americans  are  enlightened  and  free, 


JAMES  FENIMORE   COOPER  105 

and  as  far  from  deserving  these  epithets  as  any  people  on 
earth.' 

"  '  And  yet  the  fact  follows  from  your  own  theory.  If  one 
man  is  as  good  as  another,  and  any  one  of  them  is  a  fool,  or  a 
knave,  or  a  traitor, — all  are  knaves,  or  fools,  or  traitors ! '  ' 

Equally  clever  in  a  superficial  way  is  some  of  the  satire  in 
Home  as  Found,  though  the  tone  of  the  book  is  too  polemical 
and  ill-natured  for  the  few  bright  spots  to  be  noticed.  But 
there  is  a  coarse  kind  of  truth  in  the  description  of  the  Fourth 
of  July  oration,  containing  "the  usual  allusions  to  Greece  and 
Rome,  between  the  republics  of  which  and  that  of  this  coun 
try  there  exists  some  such  affinity  as  is  to  be  found  between  a 
horse-chestnut  and  a  chestnut-horse,  or  that  of  mere  words; 
and  a  long  catalogue  of  national  glories  that  might  very  well 
have  sufficed  for  all  the  republics,  both  of  antiquity  and  of 
our  own  time.  But  when  the  orator  came  to  speak  of  the 
American  character,  and  particularly  of  the  intelligence  of 
the  nation,  he  was  most  felicitous,  and  made  the  largest  in 
vestments  in  popularity.  According  to  his  account  of  the 
matter,  no  other  people  possessed  a  tithe  of  the  knowledge,  or 
a  hundredth  part  of  the  honesty  and  virtue  of  the  very  com 
munity  he  was  addressing ;  and  after  laboring  for  ten  minutes 
to  convince  his  hearers  that  they  already  knew  everything,  he 
wasted  several  more  in  trying  to  persuade  them  to  undertake 
further  acquisitions  of  the  same  nature." 

The  unfortunate  thing  about  this  kind  of  satire  is  that  it 
hits  an  unworthy  foe;  the  hypocrite  who  is  also  a  fool,  and  the 
country  orator  who  talks  nonsense  in  platitudes,  hardly  need 
to  have  a  book  written  to  point  their  defects.  And  as  the  au 
thor  so  avowedly  undertook  to  lecture  his  countrymen  on  their 
faults,  it  is  not  surprising  that  many  who  were  neither  editors 
nor  orators  felt  his  presumption  in  an  almost  personal  way. 

The  enemies  that  his  many  quarrels  had  brought  him  made 
one  last  attempt  to  crush  the  militant  man  of  letters, — and  of 


io6  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

all  the  battles  he  fought,  this  seems  the  most  to  his  credit. 
From  the  time  of  his  first  success  as  a  writer  of  sea  tales,  he 
had  planned  a  history  of  the  United  States  navy.  It  was  a 
work  in  which  both  his  professional  pride  and  his  patriotism 
found  every  incentive,  and  when  he  was  at  last  free  to  un 
dertake  it,  he  spared  no  pains  to  make  it  authoritative.  It 
was  published  in  May,  1839.  Competent  critics  attest  its 
thoroughness,  and  the  court  before  which  it  came  in  the  proc 
ess  of  the  quarrel  it  aroused,  vindicated  its  fairness.  But  its 
very  fairness  made  trouble  for  Cooper.  There  had  been  for 
some  twenty  years  a  bitter  quarrel  over  the  facts  of  the  battle 
of  Lake  Erie.  Shortly  after  the  victory  a  report  was  in  general 
circulation  that  Elliott,  the  officer  second  in  command,  had 
been  treacherous  to  Commander  Perry,  failing  to  assist  him 
in  the  critical  part  of  the  fight.  Perry  at  first  exonerated 
Elliott  from  the  charge,  but  some  four  or  five  years  later 
changed  his  mind.  The  popularity  of  the  Commodore,  and 
his  death  in  1819,  left  Elliott  with  little  means  of  righting 
himself  in  the  public  opinion.  The  course  he  adopted  was 
very  unwise,  as  it  appeared  to  be  self-assertion  rather  than  de 
fense  ;  he  allowed  a  life  of  himself  to  be  published  in  which  the 
victory  at  Lake  Erie  was  attributed  to  his  skill  and  courage. 
He  had  indeed  this  support  of  his  view,  that  Perry,  in  his  first 
approval  of  Elliott,  had  written,  "I  consider  the  circumstance 
of  your  volunteering  and  bringing  the  smaller  vessels  up  to 
close  action  as  contributing  largely  to  our  victory."  What 
ever  bias  Cooper  had  when  he  began  to  investigate  the  sub 
ject  is  said  to  have  been  against  Elliott,  but  apparently  he 
found  no  proof  of  the  charges  of  treachery,  and  in  his  history, 
while  giving  due  credit  to  Perry,  he  said  nothing  to  disparage 
the  other  officer. 

The  attack  upon  the  book  was  general,  and  the  critics  di 
rected  their  fire  against  this  one  passage,  claiming  that  in  re 
fraining  from  passing  judgment  on  Elliott,  Cooper  had  been 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  107 

unpatriotic,  and  adding  personal  reflections  upon  the  author. 
Some  of  the  offensive  reviews  were  written  by  prominent 
men, — one  in  particular,  appearing  in  the  Commercial  Ad 
vertiser,  of  New  York,  by  ex-president  William  A.  Duer,  of 
Columbia  College.  Cooper  brought  a  suit  for  libel  against 
the  editor  of  the  paper.  The  peculiar  conduct  of  the  case 
shows  not  only  Cooper's  skill,  but  also  the  high  motives  that 
impelled  him  to  go  to  law.  At  the  request  of  the  defendant 
he  agreed  to  have  the  case  tried,  not  before  a  jury,  but  before 
three  judges,  who  were  to  decide  whether  the  review  was  libel 
lous,  and  whether  the  history  was  fair  and  truthful.  At  the 
trial  in  May,  1842,  in  New  York,  Cooper  conducted  his  own 
case,  with  a  triumphant  effect  well  described  by  a  spectator: 

"On  the  one  hand  his  speech  was  a  remarkable  exhibition  of 
self-esteem,  and  on  the  other,  a  most  interesting  professional 
argument;  for  when  he  described  the  battle,  and  illustrated 
his  views  by  diagrams,  it  was  like  a  chapter  in  one  of  his  own 
sea-stories,  so  minute,  graphic,  and  spirited  was  the  picture 
he  drew.  The  dogmatism  was  more  than  compensated  for 
by  the  picturesqueness  of  the  scene;  his  self-complacency  was 
exceeded  by  his  wonderful  ability." 

The  judges  were  asked  to  give  their  decision  upon  different 
aspects  of  the  case,  making  eight  points  in  all.  Every  point 
was  decided  in  Cooper's  favor,  the  five  chief  ones  being  de 
cided  unanimously.  Some  minor  litigation  followed,  but 
Cooper  had  vindicated  his  honor  as  a  writer  and  had  come  to 
the  end  of  his  public  imbroglios  with  this  victory. 

VIII 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  during  this  period  of  tur 
moil  most  of  Cooper's  writing  suffered  in  quality.  He  had 
been  preoccupied  with  controversial  ideas — never  the  best 
material  for  artistic  literature;  and  with  him  more  even  than 
most  authors  a  conscious  message  was  fatal  to  the  story.  Yet 


io8  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

in  the  midst  of  the  libel  suits  he  wrote  two  of  his  most  notable 
books,  showing  an  almost  incredible  detachment  from  his 
other  interests  of  the  moment.  In  The  Pathfinder,  published 
in  March,  1840,  and  The  Deer  slayer,  published  in  August, 
1841,  he  completed  the  Leatherstocking  Tales  in  his  best 
vein  of  sympathy  with  nature,  and  in  his  richest  poetic  mood : 
in  the  second  novel  particularly,  the  reader  finds  no  hint  of  a 
mind  disturbed  by  petty  litigation. 

In  The  Pathfinder  Cooper  attempted,  as  he  said,  to  bring 
the  Indian  and  the  sailor  together, — in  other  words,  to  com 
bine  his  two  most  successful  veins  of  romance.  His  naval  ex 
perience  on  Lake  Ontario  gave  him  the  needed  basis  in  fact 
for  his  tale;  he  laid  the  plot  on  that  inland  water,  in  the  French 
war,  with  one  British  cutter,  the  Scud,  and  Indian  canoes  for 
accessories.  The  plan  of  the  story  is  in  some  respects  weaker 
even  than  that  of  The  Pioneers,  since  it  has  less  coherence, 
though  occasionally  more  action;  and  in  several  places,  as 
when  the  cutter  is  in  danger  off  the  cliffs,  there  are  feeble 
echoes  of  earlier  novels.  But  the  poetical  rendering  of  the 
frontier,  the  forests  and  the  waters,  is  as  magical  as  ever, — 
indeed  it  sometimes  reaches  effects  of  unusual  power,  es 
pecially  when  the  characters  first  reach  the  lake,  and  the  sea 
man,  Uncle  Cap,  brings  out,  by  the  contrast  of  his  loyal 
praise  of  the  ocean,  the  unique  charm  of  the  inland  sea.  In 
this  one  respect  the  book  holds  its  place  among  the  Leather- 
stocking  Tales;  in  other  ways  it  stands  quite  apart  from  them.. 

Cooper  himself  suspected  that  the  juxtaposition  of  the  sea- 
interest  with  woodcraft  might  not  have  the  happiest  effect, 
and  his  purpose  to  describe  the  movements  on  the  lake  natu 
rally  compels  him  to  shorten  that  portion  of  the  book  in  which 
his  genius  was  surest.  The  adventures  of  the  scout  and 
Chingachgook,  while  bringing  Mabel  Dunham  to  the  fort,  of 
necessity  suggest  the  finer  journey  in  The  Last  of  the  Mohi 
cans,  but  the  situation  loses  no  interest  in  the  repetition;  such 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  109 

pursuits,  calling  for  ingenious  woodcraft,  never  exhausted 
Cooper's  invention.  But  the  episode  is  far  too  brief.  At  its 
end,  when  the  evolutions  of  the  British  force  begin,  the  plot  is 
uncertain,  Chingachgook  practically  disappears  from  the 
story,  and  Leatherstocking  ceases  to  display  almost  all  his 
characteristic  virtues,  save  his  sense,  of  honor  and  his  skill 
with  the  rifle.  So  important  to  the  reader  of  the  famous  series 
are  the  hunter  and  his  Indian  comrade,  that  when  the  peculiar 
interest  in  them  is  relaxed,  hardly  any  compensation  redeems 
the  story;  and  in  this  case  the  great  charm  of  Mabel  Dunham 
and  Dew-of-June,  the  Indian  girl,  and  the  consistent  humor 
of  Uncle  Cap,  the  pedantic  sailor,  fail  to  make  up  for  the  rare 
appearances  of  the  Great  Serpent  or  for  the  inferior  portrayal 
of  Leatherstocking. 

In  this  novel  as  well  as  in  The  Deerslayer,  Cooper  shows  the 
hunter  in  love.  It  goes  without  saying  that  any  love-affair 
in  Leatherstocking's  life  would  need  the  most  delicate  treat 
ment,  if  the  peculiar  quality  of  his  character  were  to  be  pre 
served.  In  the  first  attempt  Cooper's  skill  is  inadequate; 
Leatherstocking  betrothed  to  Mabel  Dunham  is  a  highly 
interesting  and  in  the  end  a  noble  figure,  but  he  is  no  longer 
Leatherstocking.  He  has  lost  his  poetic  isolation  from  so 
ciety,  in  the  need  he  is  made  to  express  for  "a  house  and  a 
furniture  and  a  home."  The  wish  so  expressed,  in  terms  of 
the  conventionalities  he  never  had  known,  contradicts  the 
portrait  of  him  in  the  other  stories.  And  his  wooing  of  the 
beautiful  girl  so  much  younger  than  he,  makes  him  seem  less 
sensible  in  human  things  than  he  is  known  to  be  at  all  other 
times.  In  more  than  his  love-making,  however,  he  is  changed 
in  this  story.  Cooper  makes  him  much  nearer  to  civilization 
than  in  any  other  novel  of  the  series;  the  fact  that  he  is  habit 
ually  employed  by  the  army,  and  has  command  of  the  other 
scouts,  gives  him  a  false  bearing  of  discipline  and  coopera 
tion,  quite  in  contrast  with  the  detached  self-completeness 


no  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

that  makes  him  attractive  to  the  imagination.  And  with  his 
nearness  to  society  goes  a  surprising  acquaintance  with  its 
ways;  his  notable  piety  here  takes  the  form  of  quotations  from 
Scripture,  though  elsewhere  he  is  illiterate,  and  nature  is  his 
Bible.  Undoubtedly  his  renunciation  of  Mabel's  hand  when 
he  discovers  her  love  for  Jasper,  is  the  action  of  a  great 
hearted  character,  and  the  long  and  trying  scene  is  one  of  the 
most  effective  in  Cooper.  But  in  its  prolixity  and  its  elabo 
rate  courtesy  it  is  unlike  Leatherstocking,  who  in  the  other 
stories  showed  latent  tact  whenever  a  delicate  situation  called 
for  it.  And  the  final  picture  of  him,  cherishing  for  years  the 
sad  memories  of  a  blighted  love,  is  completely  out  of  tone 
with  his  lack  of  sentimentality  wherever  else  he  appears. 

The  wonder  is  that  Cooper  should  have  written  such  a  book 
at  all  in  those  years  of  worriment.  No  less  remarkable  as  a 
tribute  to  the  fascination  of  the  story  is  the  legend  that  while 
the  author  was  suing  him,  Thurlow  Weed  sat  up  all  night  to 
read  it.  Only  a  comparison  with  the  other  novels  of  the  series 
makes  this  one  seem  tame.  But  such  a  comparison  is  inevi 
table  now,  and  the  modern  reader  perceives  the  effect  of  dis 
tracting  worries  in  the  author's  reworking  of  old  material, — 
in  the  escape  to  the  fort,  less  effective  than  in  The  Last  oj  the 
Mohicans;  in  Arrowhead,  less  convincing  as  the  villain  than 
Le  Renard  Subtil;  in  the  cowardly  Muir,  so  clumsy  a  traitor 
after  Dillon;  and  in  the  figure  of  Leatherstocking  standing 
with  his  rifle  on  the  deck  of  the  cutter, — so  idle  and  out  of 
place  in  the  contrast  he  there  suggests  with  Long  Tom  Coffin. 

In  The  Deer  slayer  Cooper  recovered  his  old  skill  tenfold. 
Parkman  thought  this  the  best  of  the  Leatherstocking  Tales, 
and  for  once  his  judgment  of  Cooper  can  hardly  be  ques 
tioned.  The  beautiful  story  of  the  hunter  in  his  youth,  loyal 
to  his  friend,  and  just  beginning  to  make  his  fame,  shows  the 
author's  powers  at  their  highest.  To  have  represented  the 
Deerslayer  so  convincingly  in  his  days  of  inexperience,  work- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  III 

ing  backwards  as  it  were  from  the  character  as  shown  in  The 
Pioneers,  is  no  less  an  achievement  in  art  than  to  have  brought 
the  character  to  its  logical  old  age.  As  the  Leatherstocking 
Tales  are  now  read,  in  their  proper  order,  the  mysterious 
youth,  already  separated  from  the  habitual  society  of  his  race, 
and  leagued  with  the  Delaware  chief,  has  certain  virtues  in  a 
crude  form,  which  elevate  and  explain  his  actions  in  the  later 
books.  His  love  of  truth  is  here  most  complete  and  most  "im 
portant  to  his  welfare,  from  the  moment  when  he  refuses  to 
alter  his  speech  though  Hurry  Harry  threatens  to  strangle 
him,  to  his  last  words  with  Judith — a  parting  that  brought 
out  his  delicacy  as  well  as  his  honor.  And  in  his  first  en 
counters  with  the  Indians,  here  described,  the  process  by 
which  his  truthfulness  and  his  skill  became  established  among 
them  as  a  proverb,  is  made  to  seem  more  natural  and  less  a 
matter  of  fiction  than  several  later  exhibitions  of  his  prowess; 
and  what  boy  reader,  or  what  reader  who  still  knows  the 
secret  of  the  joy  of  adventure,  would  give  up  the  history  of 
Killdeer  and  the  account  of  its  coming  into  the  hunter's  pos 
session  ! 

The  Deer  slayer's  inexperience  is  charmingly  used  to  de 
scribe  the  beautiful  lake  as  he  first  sees  it.  The  fresh  joy  in 
nature,  which  gives  the  story  a  peculiarly  youthful  zest,  is 
felt  through  the  character  of  the  hunter,  who  has  never  be 
fore  met  with  such  a  panorama  of  water  and  forest,  and  whose 
delighted  amazement  has  no  opportunity  of  abating  before 
the  story  closes.  Hurry  Harry,  in  his  rough  way,  notices  the 
Deerslayer's  admiration  of  the  lake,  and  at  the  other  end  of 
the  book  Judith  has  it  in  mind  when  she  would  persuade  the 
youth  never  to  leave  the  region.  But  Cooper  manages  to  let 
us  feel  a  finer  taste  in  his  hero,  parallel  to  his  loftier  moral 
sense,  which  makes  his  enjoyment  of  the  perfect  scene  un 
shared  to  any  great  extent  by  his  companions.  Hurry  Harry 
and  old  Hutter,  with  their  villainous  commercial  schemes, 


112  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

represent  the  opposite  extreme  of  susceptibility;  in  between 
come  the  Indian  and  Judith  and  Hetty,  but  their  private  in 
terests  for  the  time  are  more  to  them  than  fine  landscape. 
Chingachgook  wins  his  bride,  and  Judith's  passion  finds  a 
tragic  end;  but  the  Deerslayer  is  shown  falling  in  love  with 
nature,  and  through  him  the  reader  sees  the  lake  and  the 
forest  in  a  transfigured  charm,  through  a  lover's  eyes. 

Like  the  last  of  the  Leatherstocking  Tales,  this  first  story, 
though  full  of  action,  is  confined  to  one  spot,  and  there  is, 
properly  speaking,  no  chase  or  pursuit.  As  in  The  Last  0}  the 
Mohicans,  there  is  very  little  woodcraft.  The  plot  busies  it 
self  with  the  characters  in  the  "castle"  on  the  lake,  and  with 
those  in  the  Indian  camp;  the  escape  of  the  ark  from  the 
river,  the  pursuit  of  the  girls  in  the  canoe,  and  Deerslayer 's 
attempt  to  flee  from  the  Indian  camp,  are  subordinate  epi 
sodes,  and  are  felt  to  be  such  in  the  reading.  But  the  lack  of 
movement  on  a  large  scale  is  more  than  compensated  for  by 
the  personal  prowess  of  the  characters  in  hand-to-hand  en 
counter.  The  courage  of  all  the  men  in  entering  the  Indian 
camp — though  the  motives  vary  with  their  different  natures — 
gives  a  certain  credit  even  to  Hutter  and  Hurry  Harry.  Chin- 
gachgook's  exploit  in  carrying  off  Hist  is  breathless,  and  the 
excitement  takes  on  a  noble  interest  when  the  Deerslayer  as 
sures  the  venture  of  success  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  freedom. 
And  hardly  less  interesting  is  Hetty's  simple  trust,  which 
makes  her  an  unharmed  visitor  at  the  Indian  camp-fires,  or 
Judith's  audacious  strategy,  that  sought  to  rescue  the  Deer- 
slayer  by  the  sheer  force  of  her  great  beauty.  Of  all  the 
Leatherstocking  episodes,  none  is  worked  out  with  greater 
variety  of  effect,  or  with  more  sustained  power,  than  the 
fight  with  the  Iroquois  in  the  castle.  From  the  moment  when 
Hist  discovers  the  floating  mocassin  and  suspects  the  ambush, 
the  suspense  is  terrific,  and  the  actual  events  which  follow  the 
powerful  premonition  of  danger,  are  more  than  sufficient  for 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  113 

a  satisfactory  climax;  the  rescue  of  Harry,  and  the  discovery 
that  Hutter  has  been  scalped,  have  the  true  thrill  of  romance, 
for  all  their  melodramatic  traits.  And  the  final  scene  of  the 
book,  the  charge  of  the  soldiers  and  the  destruction  of  the 
Indian  force,  is  one  of  the  most  telling  closes  in  Cooper's  plots; 
all  the  picturesque  possibilities  of  the  situation  have  been  ex 
hausted, — Deerslayer  at  the  stake,  Chingachgook  appearing 
in  the  midst  of  his  enemies,  bringing  his  friend's  rifle,  and 
Judith  in  her  superb  beauty  masquerading  as  a  queen,  have 
brought  the  story  to  a  point  where  only  a  big  effect  will  not 
seem  anticlimax, — and  the  steady  tramp  of  the  redcoats,  in 
final  contrast  to  the  undisciplined  fighting  throughout  the 
plot,  ends  all  the  picturesque  dangers  with  a  still  more  pic 
turesque  display  of  justice  and  order. 

When  Cooper  made  much  of  the  Deerslayer's  first  mortal 
combat,  describing  at  length  his  talk  with  his  dying  enemy  and 
his  assuming  of  the  name  Hawkeye,  he  was  guided  by  a  true 
artist's  sense.  In  all  the  other  books  of  the  series  Leather- 
stocking's  rifle  brought  certain  death  to  his  Indian  enemies; 
though  he  takes  no  life  willingly,  his  skill  in  his  prime  is 
chiefly  shown  on  human  victims.  However  satisfactory  such 
skill  might  seem  in  the  experienced  Indian  fighter,  it  would 
have  prejudiced  the  other  virtues  of  his  character  to  show  him 
so  deadly  a  fighter  in  his  youth.  The  impression  Deerslayer, 
so  represented,  would  have  made  upon  the  reader  is  made  in 
the  story  by  Hurry  Harry,  who  has  the  true  frontiersman's 
faith  in  a  dead  Indian.  We  see  the  hardening  process  of  ex 
perience,  which  compels  the  peaceful-minded  hunter  to  put 
aside  his  qualms  of  conscience,  and  for  his  own  safety  become 
a  slayer  of  men,  in  the  rough  world  his  destiny  leads  him  to. 
The  temper  in  which  he  accepts  the  necessity  is  highly  fatalis 
tic,  partly  as  a  result  of  a  frontier  environment,  and  partly  as 
his  peculiar  nature  dictates;  we  see  him  here  in  process  of 
learning  to  accept  the  inevitable  race-conflict,  as  in  the  later 


H4  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

books  we  see  that  acceptance  become  habitual.  But  in  this 
picture  of  his  youth  the  adjustment  to  inevitable  conditions  is 
accompanied  by  much  disillusion.  Along  with  Deerslayer's 
discovery  of  these  special  charms  of  nature,  comes  his  dis 
covery  of  the  cruelty  of  Hurry  Harry,  the  sordidness  of  old 
Hutter,  and — most  tragic  for  him — the  evil  that  has  cursed 
Judith's  beauty.  The  integrity  of  his  simple  character  could 
not  be  permanently  shaken  by  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil,  but  Cooper,  whose  skill  in  analyzing  the  soul  is  not  usu 
ally  great,  makes  it  quite  clear  that  Deerslayer  did  not  come 
through  the  ordeal  unscathed;  he  returned  to  the  Delaware 
village  "in  a  sorrow  that  it  required  months  of  activity  to  re 
move."  In  all  the  other  Leatherstocking  Tales  the  hero 
gives  his  services  to  the  deserving  and  the  good,  young  or  old; 
here  in  the  flush  of  youth  he  is  the  protector  of  the  most  beau 
tiful  woman,  who  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  unworthy,  he 
ever  met.  He  is  more  perfectly  humanized  as  a  hero  of  ro 
mance  by  his  encounter  with  Judith  than  by  his  love  for 
Mabel  Dunham,  and  it  must  be  regretted  that  Cooper  attrib 
uted  to  him  the  second  and  unconvincing  passion. 

In  Hurry  Harry  and  Thomas  Hutter  are  depicted  again  the 
adventurous  forerunners  of  civilization,  such  as  were  shown 
in  The  Pioneers.  But  in  The  Deerslayer  these  waifs  of  society 
gain  by  being  fewer  in  number,  and  their  characters  are  more 
firmly  and  completely  studied.  Hutter  is  one  of  Cooper's 
most  interesting  minor  characters — interesting  for  his  strange 
dwelling  and  his  amphibious  habits,  but  still  more  for  the 
mystery  of  his  past  and  for  his  unknown  relation  to  Judith 
and  Hetty.  For  once  Cooper  finds  the  frontier  romance,  not 
in  the  frontiersman's  prowess  on  the  line  of  civilization,  but 
in  the  hidden  circumstance  that  impelled  him  to  leave  es 
tablished  society.  This  vein  of  romance  is  more  frequently 
worked,  of  course,  in  Scott;  a  somewhat  similar  mystery  sur 
rounds  Mertoun,  in  The  Pirate.  But  Cooper  keeps  the  fron- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  115 

tier  note  of  truth  by  disclosing  nothing  of  Hutter's  secret, 
even  at  the  end  of  the  story;  as  Hurry  Harry  makes  plain  to 
Deerslayer,  it  is  the  etiquette  of  the  border  to  ask  no  embar 
rassing  questions. 

IX 

With  the  publication  of  The  Deerslayer  Cooper's  best  work 
was  over.  Indeed,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  no  book 
he  wrote  afterwards  has  even  a  slight  hold  on  fame,  with  the 
exception  of  Wing  and  Wing.  It  is  supposed  that  the  prolific 
succession  of  novels  continuing  almost  till  his  death  were  in 
tended  to  make  up  certain  financial  losses  he  had  suffered  in 
investments  and  cotton  speculation.  To  what  extent  they 
succeeded  in  this  purpose,  it  is  now  impossible  to  tell,  but  they 
clearly  suffered  from  the  marked  speed  of  their  production. 
Then,  too,  Cooper's  genius  was  aging  fast;  he  had  exhausted 
his  vein,  and  he  was  too  old  to  find  a  new  one.  The  mere 
mention  of  the  titles  of  his  last  books  is  in  most  cases  all  the 
notice  they  deserve. 

To  the  end  of  his  days,  Cooper  had  the  faculty  of  fixing  on 
rich  themes,  though  he  no  longer  could  work  them  out.  Mer 
cedes  o)  Castile,  published  in  November,  1840,  is  an  historical 
romance,  with  the  first  voyage  of  Columbus  for  its  main  inci 
dent.  Cooper  was  quick  to  see  the  possibilities  here  for  a  sea- 
story,  and  for  a  picture  of  the  Indians  as  white  men  first  knew 
them.  But  the  voyage  does  not  begin  until  one  quarter  of  the 
volume  is  past,  and  the  part  played  by  the  Ozema,  the  Indian 
whom  Columbus  brings  back  to  Spain,  does  not  rank  the 
character  with  his  earlier  work.  For  all  its  fine  idea,  the  story 
is  tiresome.  Much  the  same  criticism  applies  to  The  Two 
Admirals,  published  in  April,  1842.  The  long  and  tedious 
introduction  spoils  the  story  for  most  readers,  though  it  should 
have  proved  interesting.  Cooper  here  attempted  to  describe 
the  manceuvers  of  large  fleets,  rather  than  the  adventures  of 


Ii6  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

single  ships,  and  in  the  moments  of  real  action  the  plot  be 
comes  as  exciting  as  he  alone  could  make  such  ocean  adven 
tures.  But  in  his  best  sea  tales  the  interest  is  focused  upon 
one  vessel,  often  upon  only  one  part  of  it;  the  difficulty  of 
keeping  whole  fleets  before  the  reader's  attention  would  be 
great  for  any  author,  and  particularly  for  Cooper,  whose 
genius  lacked  much  organizing  faculty.  The  result  is  that  the 
story  is  at  its  best  only  when  the  fleet  as  a  whole  is  neglected 
for  a  single  ship,  as  when  in  the  last  battle  the  fight  on  the 
Plantagenet  is  described. 

In  Wing  and  Wing,  which  appeared  later  in  the  same  year, 
Cooper  repeated  with  variations  the  sea-story  told  in  The  Red 
Rover  and  The  Water  Witch, — that  is,  he  gave  once  more  an 
account  of  an  outlaw  vessel  of  great  speed,  with  a  commander 
of  personal  charm  and  miraculous  skill.  The  plot  is  laid 
off  the  shores  of  Elba,  and  the  outlaw  captain,  Raoul,  is  a 
French  corsair.  The  loss  of  the  lugger  and  the  death  of  its 
commander  give  the  story  a  tragic  end,  and  the  figure  of  Nel 
son  in  command  of  the  English  fleet  raises  the  narrative  to  a 
place  of  some  importance  among  Cooper's  historical  ro 
mances;  but  the  familiar  elements  of  chases,  running  fights 
and  wrecks,  can  be  found  to  far  better  advantage  in  The  Pilot 
or  The  Red  Rover. 

In  September,  1843,  appeared  Wyandotte;  or  the  Hutted 
Knoll,  one  of  the  most  curious  experiments  that  poor  judg 
ment  could  allow  an  author  to  make.  In  this  novel  Cooper 
actually  attempts  to  tell  another  story  in  the  same  scenes  and 
almost  in  the  same  period  as  The  Pioneers.  Wyandotte  deals 
with  the  settlement  of  a  claim  in  the  neighborhood  of  Otsego, 
just  before  and  during  the  Revolutionary  War.  Of  course 
there  is  no  Leatherstocking  to  give  his  peculiar  interest  to  the 
story,  and  the  society  pictured  is  not  only  less  interesting  than 
that  of  the  earlier  book,  but  it  is  entirely  different;  it  has  the 
effect  not  only  of  failing  to  justify  itself,  but  of  casting  some 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  117 

suspicion  upon  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  account  of  the 
frontier  in  The  Pioneers.  The  novel  has  never  been  read 
enough,  however,  to  be  reckoned  with  seriously.  Nor  is  there 
need  to  mention  the  following  stories,  published  in  1844, 
Afloat  and  Ashore,  and  its  sequel,  Miles  Wallingjord,  except 
to  say  that  the  hero  tells  his  own  adventures,  and  the  autobio 
graphical  manner  is  so  pleasant  as  to  offset  somewhat  a  long 
and  tiresome  tale.  In  all  these  later  novels  Cooper's  piety 
took  the  form  of  dogmatic  references  to  church  and  religion, 
and  his  heroes  became  frankly  prigs.  His  life  had  not  been 
such  as  to  enrich  his  nature  with  charitable  sympathies,  and 
his  opinions  were  not  softened  in  his  last  years,  as  Scott's 
were,  by  universal  love  and  admiration. 

The  three  following  novels,  Satanstoe,  in  June,  1845,  The 
Chainbearer,  in  November  of  the  same  year,  and  The  Red 
skins,  in  July,  1846,  though  worthless  as  stories,  illustrate  ad 
mirably  Cooper's  patriotism  and  his  love  of  justice.  The 
series  pretends  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  Littlepage  family 
through  several  generations,  and  the  subject  of  all  three  books 
is  the  relation  of  landlord  and  tenant,  with  direct  reference  to 
the  anti-rent  troubles  in  New  York  State  in  the  years  follow 
ing  1839.  If  there  is  any  difference,  the  last  of  the  series 
makes  the  most  hopeless  reading,  for  in  that  volume  Cooper 
concentrated  his  main  discussion  of  the  economic  question, 
but  all  three  books  are  fatally  enfeebled  by  the  author's  ethi 
cal  purposes.  In  the  prefaces,  however,  he  writes  most  ef 
fectively  of  the  question  itself  and  of  his  object  in  dealing 
with  it,  and  perhaps  he  has  nowhere  better  stated  his  personal 
ideal  of  good  citizenship  than  in  the  conclusion  of  the  preface 
to  Satanstoe: 

"For  ourselves,  we  conceive  that  true  patriotism  consists  in 
laying  bare  everything  like  public  vice,  and  in  calling  such 
things  by  their  right  names.  The  great  enemy  of  the  race  has 
made  a  deep  inroad  upon  us,  within  the  last  ten  or  a  dozen 


Ii8  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

years,  under  cover  of  a  spurious  delicacy  on  the  subject  of  ex 
posing  national  ills;  and  it  is  time  that  they  who  have  not  been 
afraid  to  praise,  when  praise  was  merited,  should  not  shrink 
from  the  office  of  censuring,  when  the  want  of  timely  warn 
ings  may  be  one  cause  of  the  most  fatal  evils.  The  great 
practical  defect  of  institutions  like  ours,  is  the  circumstance 
that  'what  is  everybody's  business,  is  nobody's  business,'  a 
neglect  that  gives  to  the  activity  of  the  rogue  a  very  dangerous 
ascendency  over  the  more  dilatory  corrections  of  the  honest 
man." 

Cooper's  last  stories  were  The  Crater,  October,  1847,  a 
study  of  social  conditions  as  illustrated  by  a  handful  of  ad 
venturers  on  a  Pacific  island;  Jack  Tier,  March,  1848,  a  sea 
tale  of  the  Red  Rover  type,  with  changes  that  may  be  imagined 
from  the  circumstance  that  the  mistress  of  the  Corsair,  dis 
guised  as  a  boy,  is  here  represented  by  the  deserted  wife  of 
Stephen  Spike,  who  to  find  her  husband  adopts  the  character 
of  Jack  Tier;  The  Oak  Openings,  August,  1848,  a  story 
founded  on  a  western  journey  Cooper  had  made  the  year  be 
fore;  The  Sea  Lions,  April,  1849, a  ta^e  °f  Antarctic  adventure; 
and  The  Ways  of  the  Hour,  April,  1850,  an  attack  upon  the 
system  of  trial  by  jury.  In  these  years  Cooper  also  finished 
less  important  pieces,  and  in  1850  he  wrote  a  comedy,  Upside 
Down;  or,  Philosophy  in  Petticoats,  which  was  acted  for  three 
nights  in  New  York. 

His  last  years  were  spent  happily  at  Cooperstown.  Some 
of  the  old  rancour  had  begun  to  fade,  and  before  he  died  a 
movement  was  on  foot  to  honor  him  with  a  public  dinner; 
already  his  fame  was  mellowing  with  the  gratitude  of  a  world 
of  readers.  In  1850,  in  the  summer,  he  went  to  New  York 
City,  where  his  splendid  appearance  was  remarked  and  re 
membered.  Early  in  the  next  year  his  health  began  to  fail. 
On  September  14,  1851,  he  died  at  Cooperstown.  His  wife, 
who  had  made  his  home  a  lifelong  world  of  happiness,  out 
lived  him  only  four  months. 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  119 


It  is  not  difficult  to  see  now  why  Cooper,  in  spite  of  his  great 
services  to  his  country, — "  deserving  well  of  it,"  as  Thackeray 
said, — has  enjoyed  little  personal  honor.  His  character  has 
become  fixed  in  a  tradition  of  tactlessness  and  love  of  quarrel 
ing,  which  has  rendered  him  with  much  injustice,  a  somewhat 
unlovable  figure.  It  is  probable,  as  time  goes  on,  that  the 
sterling  worth  of  his  Americanism  will  win  a  broader  credit, 
and  the  lofty  ideals  of  the  man  will  atone,  as  they  should,  for 
the  excess  of  militant  criticism  that  bred  up  detractors  from 
his  fame.  That  he  was  almost  invariably  on  the  right  side 
can  hardly  be  disputed,  and  no  other  American  man  of  letters, 
not  even  Lowell,  gave  his  genius  so  passionately  and  so  con 
tinuously  to  the  welfare  of  his  country  and  the  prospering  of 
the  cause  of  humanity. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  Cooper's  fame  now  rests  on  prac 
tically  seven  books — The  Spy,  The  Pilot  and  the  Leather- 
stocking  Tales.  Whatever  he  wrote  with  specific  purpose,  in 
behalf  of  justice  or  for  the  glorification  of  national  pride,  is 
now  allowed  by  the  general  reader  to  rest  on  the  shelves  un 
disturbed;  but  Harvey  Birch,  Long  Tom  Coffin  and  Leather- 
stocking  still  delight  the  world,  and  probably  will  continue  to 
do  so  as  long  as  the  novel  is  an  acceptable  form  of  entertain 
ment.  In  these  seven  books  is  the  real  Cooper,  untroubled  by 
a  conscious  purpose;  here  are  displayed  best  his  love  of  na 
ture,  his  zest  for  physical  adventure,  his  admiration  for  sturdy 
manhood;  and  here  unconsciously  he  finds  expression  for  the 
rich  vein  of  poetry  that  colored  his  practical  knowledge  of 
life. 

The  term  " artist"  hardly  applies  to  Cooper,  in  whatever 
aspect  his  writing  is  considered;  his  great  successes,  artistic 
as  they  are,  follow  from  intuition  more  than  from  conscious 
control  of  the  effects.  Yet  any  writer  so  prolific  must  for 


120  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

economy's  sake  follow  beaten  paths,  even  in  his  intuitive  mo 
ments,  and  these  seven  best  novels  show  as  a  whole  Cooper's 
"methods," — if  the  word  may  be  used  of  the  natural  habit  of 
his  mind  in  dealing  with  narrative  material.  Whatever  liter 
ary  influence  appears  in  this  habit,  comes  from  Scott,  though 
in  many  respects  the  very  use  of  similar  methods  and  material 
usually  emphasizes  Cooper's  originality. 

These  seven  novels  follow  the  general  plan  of  such  ro 
mances  as  Waverley  and  Ivanhoe  and  Rob  Roy.  Perhaps  the 
most  important  resemblance  is  in  the  ultra-romantic  hero, 
touched  with  the  extreme  individuality  that  marked  the  first 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  became  fixed  in  the  typ 
ical  isolated  hero  of  Byron  or  Shelley.  As  Robin  Hood  and 
Rob  Roy  and  Mclvor  stand  apart  from  the  main  interests  of 
the  plot,  fatally  yet  not  altogether  disagreeably  detached  from 
society,  so  Harvey  Birch,  Long  Tom  Coffin  and  Leather- 
stocking  are  lonely  men,  whose  relation  to  their  race,  for  some 
inward  reason  of  the  spirit,  is  limited  and  casual.  The  rest 
less  aspiration  of  the  new  age  found  its  image  in  wanderers 
and  explorers  of  the  frontiers  of  thought — in  the  hero  of  Alas- 
tor,  and  in  Childe  Harold;  and  in  America  it  found  its  expres 
sion  in  these  prose  parallels  of  Cooper's.  But  however  else 
the  imaginative  exiles  in  the  English  poems  may  have  superi 
ority,  Birch  and  Coffin,  and  especially  Leatherstocking,  ex 
cel  in  a  certain  effect  of  permanence,  not  matched  even  by 
Robin  Hood  or  Rob  Roy.  It  was  Cooper's  unique  fortune  to 
place  his  lonely  wanderers,  explorers  along  the  frontiers  of 
the  spirit,  on  an  actual  frontier,  which  actually  represented  in 
our  national  history  those  forces  of  democracy  and  civiliza 
tion  which  Shelley  dealt  with  in  a  dream  world.  The  Amer 
ican  frontier,  moving  westward  from  Leatherstocking's 
youth  in  New  York  to  his  death  on  the  prairie,  is  the  only 
frontier  in  modern  times  marking  the  progress  of  the  race 
mind ;  its  consequent  advantage  in  dignity  over  the  delightful 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  121 

frontier  Mr.  Kipling  has  pictured  for  us,  or  the  newer  frontier 
of  Africa,  as  the  novelist  of  to-day  uses  it, — hardly  needs  men 
tion.  Robin  Hood  and  Rob  Roy  are  the  most  attractive  of 
border  ruffians;  but  the  vast  human  destinies  flooding  along 
the  American  border  make  such  types  trivial  in  comparison. 
Cooper  belongs  to  the  new  day;  the  America  he  loved  was 
of  the  future;  he  never  represents  the  frontier  without  a  faith 
ful  picture  of  the  men  who  were  leading  the  race  westward. 
Only  it  should  be  noticed  that  he  paints  such  men  as  they  are 
— Harry  March,  or  Marmaduke  Temple  and  his  cousin  the 
sheriff, — rough  and  incomplete  men,  heroic  merely  by  virtue 
of  the  great  causes  they  unconsciously  serve.  The  heroes  he 
idealized  are  the  finer  spirits,  that  feel  the  unrest  rather  than 
the  achievements  of  progress — who  wistfully  contemplate  the 
final  evolved  perfection,  but  feel  hopeless  agony  in  the  proc 
ess.  This  is  the  mood  of  Shelley's  hero  and  Byron's;  it  is  the 
mood  of  Harvey  Birch,  and  most  of  all,  of  Leatherstocking, 
and  if  the  old  hunter  at  his  best  seems  ill-equipped  intellectu 
ally  to  fill  a  place  beside  the  poetic  types,  after  all  it  is  in  mood 
and  spirit,  not  in  brain,  that  a  character  is  one  with  his  age. 

If  Leatherstocking  and  his  fellows  suggest  in  their  lone 
liness  Scott's  border  chiefs  and  outlaws,  there  is  at  the  same 
time  a  striking  difference.  To  Scott  the  border  was  a  fixed 
thing,  an  unchanging  zone  through  centuries  of  stirring  inci 
dent;  though  the  edge  of  progressing  society  was  the  scene  of 
danger  and  conflict,  the  romance  of  it  accumulated  in  one 
spot,  and  came  to  suggest  long-memoried  age  rather  than 
the  eternal  novelty  of  youth.  The  American  frontier  moved 
rapidly,  never  pausing  long  enough  for  its  legends  to  take  deep 
root  in  any  one  place,  and  changing  its  character  as  it  moved, 
so  that  the  legends  of  it  in  any  two  places  are  different.  In 
each  of  the  Leatherstocking  tales  a  special  and  distinct 
world  is  pictured,  and  no  one  of  them  resembles  the  frontier 
that  Bret  Harte  knew.  There  was  hardly  time  for  more  than 


122  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

one  writer  to  record  any  one  phase  of  the  American  border 
life  before  it  underwent  its  next  transformation;  so  that  the 
fortunate  chronicler  of  it  is  master  of  an  unassailable  realm. 
But  the  shifting  line  brought  Cooper  a  special  advantage. 
His  genius  was  at  its  best  when  dealing  with  a  changing  scene, 
with  the  rapid  movement  of  a  chase  or  pursuit.  He  alone  of 
novelists  has  sought  to  represent  the  frontier,  not  in  a  sta 
tionary  cross-section,  but  in  its  natural  passage  from  change 
to  change.  The  whole  series  of  the  Leatherstocking  Tales  is 
therefore  a  pursuit — civilization  in  its  uncouth  outworks  over 
taking  the  beauty  and  innocence  of  nature;  and  the  eternal 
embarrassment  of  the  human  heart  between  love  of  the  un 
spoiled  world  and  approval  of  civilized  progress,  is  made  into 
a  living  person,  Leatherstocking.  Virgil,  the  nature-poet  of 
the  Old  World,  felt  the  sorrow  of  the  problem  in  the  spoiling 
of  his  beloved  Italy,  and  personified  it  in  Camilla.  Far  as  the 
distance  seems  from  Rome  to  Otsego  Lake,  it  would  be  hard 
to  find  a  third  figure,  equally  significant  and  poetic,  between 
the  Italian  Amazon  and  Leatherstocking. 

Cooper's  frontier  had  another  advantage  in  the  presence  of 
the  Indians  at  practically  every  stage  of  it.  Scott  had  his 
Highlanders  for  picturesqueness  and  loyalty,  but  they  repre 
sented  to  the  mind  only  a  lower  stage  of  civilization, — not  a 
distinct  race,  and  the  ultra-romantic  hero,  wedded  to  a  Quixo 
tic  cause,  was  usually  one  of  their  number.  The  American 
Indian  has  these  important  qualities  for  romance,  that  he  is 
quite  distinct  from  the  race  advancing  upon  him,  and  yet  in 
some  of  the  best  qualities  of  that  race  he  is  undeniably  su 
perior.  And  the  circumstance  of  his  fate — condemned  by  the 
rapidity  of  the  frontier's  approach  to  accept  and  digest  all  of 
civilization  at  once, — to  pass  in  little  more  than  a  generation 
from  ignorance  of  an  alphabet  to  the  use  of  electricity, — in 
vests  him  with  a  romantic  pity  as  well  as  admiration.  So 
tempting  is  the  subject,  that  from  the  appearance  of  Park- 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  123 

man's  famous  essay  Cooper's  Indians  have  been  charged 
with  unreality;  they  have  been  called  creatures  of  romance,  or 
at  best,  of  improbability.  Their  wonderful  fascination  could 
not  be  denied  even  by  Parkman,  for  his  own  remarkable 
studies  were  inspired  by  his  youthful  enthusiasm  for  Cooper. 
But  even  more  than  that,  it  is  fortunately  becoming  the  fash 
ion  among  critics  to  see  that  Cooper  said  little,  if  anything, 
of  the  Indians  that  was  not  strictly  true.  He  paints  the  sav 
age's  treachery  and  cruelty  in  unequivocal  colors;  even  his 
"good  Indians"  have  the  traits  that  set  them  off  from  the 
white  man's  complete  sympathy.  And  the  good  Indians 
themselves,  Chingachgook  and  Uncas,  are  shown  to  be  singu 
lar  exceptions.  By  portraying  the  moving  border,  Cooper  is 
able  to  show  the  changes  in  Indian  condition,  parallel  to  the 
changes  among  the  white  frontiersmen;  so  the  Sioux  are  dif 
ferent  in  many  ways  from  the  Iroquois,  and  within  the  single 
nation  of  the  Delawares,  the  aged  Tamenund  represents  an 
already  forgotten  type  of  character.  And  in  the  individual 
Indian,  Chingachgook,  who  in  his  own  race  stands  for  the 
same  isolation,  the  same  devotion  to  an  ideal,  as  Leather- 
stocking,  the  remorseless  picture  of  drunken  ruin  ought  to 
convince  the  most  fastidious  critic  that  Cooper  did  not  ideal 
ize  the  red  man. 

Besides  his  ultra-romantic  hero,  Cooper,  like  Scott,  has  a 
moderately  interesting  hero — Duncan  Hey  ward,  for  example, 
to  correspond  to  Frank  Osbaldistone  or  Waverley.  These 
young  men  are  frankly  in  Scott's  vein.  They  are  chivalric, 
energetic  and  manly,  but  not  clever,  and  their  part  in  the 
story  is  never  one  of  great  initiative.  They  are  simply  ad 
mirable  citizens,  born  to  ornament  a  settled,  polished  society, 
and  their  presence  on  the  frontier  serves  both  for  a  foil  to  the 
mental  isolation  of  the  ultra-romantic  hero,  as  in  Scott,  and 
for  encouragement  to  a  faith  in  the  advancing  civilization 
which  they  represent.  That  they  do  represent  the  future,  is 


124  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

felt  in  the  sense  of  vital  youth  which  Cooper  manages  to  give 
them,  which  always  makes  Leatherstocking  seem  in  com 
parison  old  and  outdistanced.  It  must  have  been  by  the  in 
tuition  of  genius  that  the  novelist  drew  no  such  character  in 
The  Deerslayer,  where  he  wished  Leatherstocking  to  seem 
young;  the  comparison  would  have  been  to  his  disadvantage. 
Cooper's  heroines,  too,  have  much  resemblance  to  Scott's, 
though  Parknun  also  set  the  fashion  to  see  little  true  or  in 
teresting  in  the  American  writer's  ideals  of  femininity.  Pro 
fessor  Lounsbury  in  his  admirable  biography  gives  Parkman's 
point  of  view  better  support  than  it  deserves,  holding  that 
these  ladies  are  insufferable  bores  with  their  correctness,  their 
stilted  talk,  and  their  insipidity.  Mr.  W.  C.  Brownell  in  his 
recent  acute  essay  on  Cooper  takes  the  other  side  with  con 
vincing  power,  pointing  out  the  genuineness  of  feminine 
portraiture  in  the  novels,  the  real  though  quiet  charm  of 
Cooper's  ideal,  and  the  occasional  grandeur  of  a  character 
like  Judith  Hutter, — who  Parkman  himself  admitted  was  the 
finest  woman  Cooper  drew.  It  must  be  confessed  at  once 
that  Cooper  portrayed  no  such  glorious  creatures  as  Di 
Vernon  or  Catherine  Seyton.  He  had  known  no  such  women 
in  life,  and  his  ideas  were  always  founded  strictly  on  the  so 
ciety  he  knew.  But  he  had  known  women  of  strong  character 
and  charming  manners,  and  he  drew  them  in  Katherine 
Plowden,  Sarah  Wharton  and  Cora  Munro — a  list  which 
could  be  lengthened,  and  which  hardly  needs  defense  against 
criticism.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  Cooper's  knowledge  of 
feminine  character  is  limited  to  very  few  types.  He  follows 
Scott  in  representing  an  ultra-romantic  heroine,  such  as  Alice 
Dunscombe,  in  The  Pilot,  or  Isabella  Singleton,  in  The  Spy; 
like  Flora  Mclvor,  they  have  a  mysterious  career  and  a  tragic 
end;  they  probably  owe  their  existence  to  Cooper's  reading, 
for  he  could  hardly  have  met  them  in  the  America  of  his  time. 
They  are  the  product  of  the  Byron  influence  in  Scott,  in  whose 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  125 

romantic  world  they  are  natural  and  intelligible,  but  in  Coo 
per,  whose  sense  for  the  real  is  so  strong,  they  never  quite 
ring  true.  His  best  heroines,  on  the  average,  belong  in  a 
second  type  to  be  paralleled  in  Scott — girls  of  much  sense  and 
strong  emotions  but  without  any  abnormal  brilliancy,  like 
Frances  Wharton.  This  type  of  womanhood  had  been  glori 
fied  in  Scott's  novels  to  the  same  extent  as  the  corresponding 
sort  of  hero,  full  of  sense  and  energy,  but  not  unusual.  Since 
it  represents  the  normal  character,  Cooper  must  have  known 
many  examples  of  it;  at  least  we  can  indulge  a  conviction  that 
the  type  had  his  admiration,  from  the  prominent  place  it  usu 
ally  holds  in  the  center  of  his  stage.  It  seems,  however,  that 
Parkman,  and  Professor  Lounsbury  after  him,  would  have 
us  believe  that  Cooper's  preference  was  for  the  fragile,  cling 
ing  creatures,  ranging  in  the  scale  of  intelligence  from  Alice 
Munro  to  Hetty  Hutter.  The  extreme  type  of  innocence, 
usually  shown  in  a  younger  sister  or  close  relative,  does  occur 
frequently  in  Cooper's  novels,  and  is  represented  with  a  charm 
not  to  be  lightly  regarded  even  to-day  by  the  reader  who  ad 
mires  old-fashioned  gentleness  and  breeding.  But  Cooper  is 
too  good  a  story-teller  to  put  the  weight  of  the  plot  upon  such 
delicate  creatures,  and  he  knew  his  subject  too  well  to  picture 
them  as  average  examples  of  American  womanhood.  His 
best  heroines  have  more  initiative  and  a  more  passionate  in 
terest  in  life.  By  far  the  best  is  Judith  Hutter,  whose  complex 
nature  he  has  drawn  with  power  and  delicacy.  No  discrimi 
nating  reader  can  pass  lightly  over  the  great  scenes  in  which 
she  tells  her  love  to  Deerslayer.  No  modern  analyst  of  the 
feminine  heart  could  indicate  with  more  skill  and  dignity  the 
effort  that  went  to  her  self -confession,  or  the  agony  she  en 
dured  from  the  hunter's  rejection  of  her  offer. 

Cooper  follows  Scott  and  the  other  romancers  in  his  in 
variable  use  of  the  villain.  If  he  portrays  no  elaborate  wicked 
ness  to  match  Rashleigh's  character,  in  Rob  Roy,  at  least  his 


126  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

villains  are  unmistakably  bad,  and  in  one  or  two  instances 
they  have  as  great  individuality.  In  the  portrayal  of  evil,  as 
in  everything  else,  Cooper's  genius  works  most  effectively  on 
the  frontier,  and  Le  Renard  Subtil,  the  Indian  enemy  in  The 
Last  of  the  Mohicans,  is  easily  his  most  successful  embodi 
ment  of  wickedness.  He  availed  himself  of  the  Indian  quali 
ties  of  shrewdness  and  treachery,  to  paint  a  figure  which 
should  be  almost  diabolical,  and  yet  perfectly  natural, — 
which  perhaps  is  more  than  can  be  said  for  Rashleigh.  Le 
Renard's  cruel  determination  to  possess  Cora,  his  device  for 
luring  her  into  the  forest  by  carrying  off  her  sister  Alice,  and 
the  satisfaction  he  has  in  stabbing  Uncas,  are  nothing  short  of 
devilish,  yet  the  circumstances  of  his  race,  and  his  treatment 
at  the  hands  of  Cora's  father  and  Chingachgook,  make  his 
conduct  inevitable  rather  than  incomprehensible.  He  is  the 
finest  of  Cooper's  villains  because  the  evil  in  him  is  joined 
with  a  great  capacity  and  a  noble  scale  of  action,  and  he  is  not 
a  coward.  The  original  injustice  of  the  harsh  treatment  that 
made  him  the  Englishman's  foe,  almost  turns  the  reader's 
sympathy  to  him,  and  in  places  the  general  sense  Cooper  has 
of  the  rights  of  the  Indians  to  the  land,  serves  to  render  Le 
Renard,  as  well  as  Chingachgook,  an  object  of  pity;  and  the 
ethical  poise  of  the  story  becomes  unsteady, — as  a  greater 
mind  than  Cooper's  once  found,  when  he  sang  of  Satan's  de 
fiance  of  the  eternal  justice.  In  The  Spy  the  Skinner  is  an 
even  more  picturesque  villain,  if  possible,  than  Le  Renard, 
but  he  is  a  coward,  and  his  wickedness  has  no  excuse.  Dillon, 
in  The  Pilot,  stirs  some  pity  by  the  very  meanness  of  his 
nature,  but  the  strongest  interest  he  excites  is  through  his  re 
lation  to  Long  Tom  Coffin. 

The  element  of  horror,  of  mental  and  physical  fear,  had  a 
large  place  in  the  early  romances,  and  literary  skill  in  dealing 
with  it  shows  a  steady  increase  from  the  Mysteries  of  Udolpho 
to  the  morbid  triumphs  of  Poe.  Scott's  sturdy  mind  accepted 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  127 

horror  only  as  it  came  in  the  natural  way  of  adventure,  as  one 
of  the  incidents  of  a  romantic  life.  So  the  drowning  of  Mor 
ris,  in  Rob  Roy,  gives  the  effect  of  horror  by  actual  physical 
events,  in  broad  daylight — something  to  be  seen  and,  as  soon 
as  possible,  forgotten, — not  brooded  upon.  Scott's  good  taste 
as  an  artist  led  him  to  limit  this  effect  to  one  occurrence  in 
each  story;  otherwise  the  force  of  it  would  be  blunted.  Cooper 
follows  Scott's  custom  in  making  the  effect  through  physical 
means,  and  in  limiting  himself  to  a  rare  use  of  it,  but  his  skill 
in  making  the  scene  real  was  greater  than  Scott's,  and  some 
of  his  earliest  critics  found  fault  with  him  for  a  too  dreadful 
facility  in  inspiring  terror.  Though  we  should  not  now  care 
to  give  up  such  powerful  scenes,  we  may  concede  some  truth 
to  the  criticisms,  remembering  such  haunting  episodes  as  old 
Birch's  death,  the  hanging  of  the  Skinner,  the  execution  of 
Abiram  White,  the  harpooning  of  the  English  captain,  and  the 
retreat  from  Fort  William  Henry. 

Cooper's  pedants,  or  bores,  of  whom  enough  has  been  said 
already,  are  also  direct  descendants  of  the  talkative,  officious 
pedants  Scott  loved  to  draw.  Bailie  Jarvie,  in  Rob  Roy,  is  the 
model  of  the  class, — yet  as  soon  as  the  name  is  mentioned,  the 
lover  of  Scott  feels  the  superior  richness  of  character  which  he 
discovers  in  his  bores.  The  type  perhaps  appealed  to  Cooper 
because  of  its  satire  upon  ofnciousness.  In  his  imitation  of  it, 
much  of  the  sweetness  is  lost,  especially  as  the  years  of  con 
troversy  embittered  his  opinion  of  the  race;  only  Gamut  and 
Dr.  Sitgreaves,  of  all  their  class,  are  really  pleasant  compan 
ions.  But  to  say  this  is  only  to  repeat  that  Cooper  had  little 
humor  and  no  delicacy  of  satire. 

In  one  respect  Cooper  differs  widely  from  Scott,  and  loses 
by  the  comparison.  In  common  with  most  American  novel 
ists,  he  had  little  gift  for  dialogue.  His  unconsciousness  of 
the  defect  is  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  his  occasional  tiresome 
ness  in  his  inferior  novels,  where  he  tries  to  indicate  character 


128  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

by  conversation,  or  to  reproduce  dialect.  All  his  characters 
speak  a  stilted  literary  prose,  not  to  be  disguised  by  Indian 
interjections,  nor  by  Leatherstocking's  formal  breaches  of 
grammar,  such  as  his  "used  to  could."  The  voice  and  the 
style  is  Cooper's  throughout :  if  there  is  any  difference  in  the 
novels,  the  preference  in  this  respect  must  be  given  to  the 
earlier  ones,  for  in  the  later  stories  the  talk  becomes  con 
stantly  more  ponderous  and  undistinguished. 

An  ultra-romantic  hero,  and  a  more  commonplace  hero, 
matched  by  the  ultra-romantic  and  the  more  normal  heroines; 
a  villain;  and  a  pedant, — these  are  the  people  to  be  met  in  the 
best  Cooper  stories,  and  as  the  types  are  named  over,  his  re 
semblance  or  indebtedness  to  Scott  is  clear.  The  world  he 
describes  is  the  frontier,  and  the  plot  involves  a  chase,  with 
one  moment  of  horror.  The  simplicity  of  these  elements  is 
the  index  of  the  writer's  character.  The  inventory  of  his 
literary  equipment  is  short;  he  is  neither  a  great  bookman, 
nor  a  philosopher,  nor  a  historian;  he  is  nothing  but  a  story 
teller.  After  the  fashion  of  practical  minds,  he  observed  and 
represented  life  as  an  experience  not  necessarily  complex;  in 
private  life  he  recognized  no  situation  that  a  prompt  applica 
tion  of  the  ten  commandments  would  not  solve.  But  he  had 
for  humanity  at  large  a  vast  sympathy,  for  the  expression  of 
which  his  intellectual  equipment  was  inadequate;  and  he 
loved  his  country  with  a  fervor  hardly  matched  again  among 
American  men  of  letters.  It  was  his  patriotism  that  made  his 
success  in  literature.  Whatever  he  learned  from  Scott  was 
changed  into  something  new  by  the  complete  Americanism  of 
his  mind,  and  the  American  landscape,  his  lifelong  passion, 
colored  even  his  pictures  of  the  Old  World.  To  say  that  he  was 
not  an  artist,  or  that  he  had  no  style,  is  to  leave  his  quality 
untouched.  He  had  American  character,  which  he  stamped 
on  everything  he  wrote,  and  which  he  made  familiar  to  all 
peoples.  Through  his  pages  our  gaunt  pine  forests,  our 


JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  129 

charmed  lakes,  and  our  mysterious  prairies  were  added  once 
for  all  to  the  geography  of  the  human  imagination;  in  his 
stories  a  romantic  and  fast  dying  race  were  rescued  to  the  re 
membrance  of  every  reading  nation,  so  that  through  him  boy 
hood  the  world  over  "plays  Indian";  he  created  the  most 
typical  figure  in  the  novel  of  his  age,  the  frontiersman,  and 
setting  him  on  the  most  romantic  border  our  civilization  re 
calls,  endowed  him  with  American  ideals  of  justice  and  effi 
ciency,  and  with  something  of  American  fatalism.  Leather- 
stocking  is  one  of  the  heroic  figures  of  the  world's  fiction, — 
one  of  its  prizemen;  Thackeray  spoke  truth  when  he  said 
that  Cooper  deserves  well  of  us. 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS,  like  Cooper,  is  a  story-teller. 
He  did  for  the  Southwestern  border  what  Cooper  did  for  the 
Northern  frontier  and  what  Bret  Harte  was  later  to  do  for 
California.  Simms  has  suffered  somewhat  in  the  rating  of 
critics  because  he  so  strongly  resembles  Cooper, — just  as 
Cooper  has  suffered  for  his  resemblances  to  Scott.  The  two 
American  writers  have  this  in  common  with  the  great  ro 
mancer,  that  they  were  masters  of  story-telling  rather  than 
thinkers  or  scholars,  they  were  poets  in  their  idealism,  and 
they  used  their  immediate  country  and  its  history  for  the 
scenes  and  plots  of  their  tales.  Beyond  this  it  is  uncritical  to 
press  their  similarities.  Simms  was  ready  enough  to  acknowl 
edge  his  indebtedness  to  Cooper.  The  admiration  he  ex 
pressed  for  him  when  the  New  York  writer  was  not  personally 
beloved  by  his  countrymen  is  chivalry  at  its  best.  But  Simms 
had  a  personality  of  his  own — a  noble  one,  and  it  is  much  to 
the  interest  of  American  literature  to  remember  him  in  his 
own  right. 

His  boyhood,  in  its  way,  was  as  romantic  and  as  favorable 
to  the  fostering  of  genius  as  Scott's  or  Cooper's,  having  a 
large  element  of  that  not  unhappy  loneliness  which  seems  re 
served  for  imaginative  boys  destined  to  be  great.  His  father, 
after  whom  he  was  named,  was  an  Irish  semi-genius  of  much 
temperament,  who  came  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  just 
after  the  Revolution,  and  in  1804  married  a  Miss  Harriet 
Ann  Augusta  Singleton,  some  twenty  years  his  junior.  Their 


132  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

second  child,  William  Gilmore,  was  born  in  Charleston, 
April  17,  1806.  Two  years  later  the  mother  died,  shortly 
after  the  death  of  the  first  child.  The  father  had  been  over 
taken  by  business  troubles  which  ended  in  bankruptcy,  and 
in  a  fit  of  desperation,  apparently,  he  disappeared  into  the 
wilderness  of  Tennessee,  leaving  his  surviving  child  to  the  care 
of  its  maternal  grandmother. 

This  Mrs.  Singleton,  left  a  widow,  had  married  again  and 
was  now  Mrs.  Gates.  It  is  extremely  unlikely  that  any  cal 
culation  ever  prompted  the  more  than  Celtic  actions  of  the 
elder  Simms,  but  if  he  had  been  the  coldest  and  shrewdest  of 
men  he  could  hardly  have  left  his  infant  son  in  better  hands. 
As  the  boy  grew  up  he  heard  from  his  grandmother's  lips 
stories  of  the  great  war  for  freedom,  which  she  had  witnessed, 
— stories  which  in  her  fashion  of  remembering  and  telling 
had  perhaps  already  assumed  the  quality  of  legends.  Mrs. 
Gates  was  a  generous  woman  and  brought  up  the  child  to 
think  well  of  his  wandering  father,  who  wrote  few  letters,  but 
those  always  full  of  border  adventure.  Scott  himself  can 
hardly  have  absorbed  more  stories  in  his  childhood,  nor 
gloated  over  tales  of  adventure  nearer  in  family  history. 

When  he  was  six  years  old  the  boy  was  sent  to  a  public 
school,  which  from  his  own  account  was  not  all  that  a  school 
should  be.  An  old  Irishman  who  taught  him  to  spell,  read 
tolerably,  and  write  a  pretty  good  hand,  was  the  best  teacher 
he  had,  "and  he  knew  little."  There  was  no  one  who  knew 
enough  to  teach  arithmetic.  After  two  years  of  this  system, 
which  Simms  in  later  years  described  as  "  worthless  and 
scoundrelly,"  he  had  a  few  years  more  in  private  schools,  and 
so  ended  his  formal  education.  But  the  meagerness  of  this 
training  was  balanced  by  a  great  love  of  books,  which  re 
acted  as  it  usually  does  with  such  natures,  in  a  love  of  writing. 
Before  he  was  thirteen  he  wrote  verses  on  the  war  of  1812,  and 
;  by  that  time  he  was  enthralled  by  Scott,  Byron  and  Moore,  and 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  133 

probably  by  many  others  of  the  English  poets.  In  prose  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress  and  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  were  early 
and  lasting  favorites.  When  his  school  days  were  over  he  was 
apprenticed  to  a  druggist,  with  some  idea  that  he  might  study 
medicine.  But  his  real  studies  were  conducted  at  night  after 
he  was  supposed  to  be  asleep,  when  he  read  good  books  by 
the  light  of  a  candle  stuck  in  a  box, — this  not  very  black  de 
ception  being  made  necessary  by  Mrs.  Gates'  disposition  in 
favor  of  early  hours. 

About  this  time  his  father  returned,  making  his  coming  felt 
in  a  startling  way.  He  evidently  wanted  to  see  his  son  and 
doubted  if  the  grandmother  would  part  with  him,  so  to  make 
sure,  it  is  said,  he  tried  to  kidnap  the  boy  on  the  street.  The 
attempt  failed,  more  formal  negotiations  were  opened  in 
court,  and  young  Simms  had  his  choice  of  going  or  staying. 
He  wisely  enough  chose  to  stay  with  his  grandmother,  and  the 
father,  in  complete  good  humor,  paid  them  a  visit  in  1816  or 
1817.  What  the  visit  meant  to  the  boy  can  easily  be  imagined. 
The  father  whom  he  had  idealized  as  borderer  and  Indian 
fighter  was  now  for  a  while  his  companion, — a  handsome 
man,  with  wit  and  the  gift  of  verse-making,  and  with  innumer 
able  adventures  to  tell,  both  of  the  general  frontier  life  and  of 
his  fighting  under  Jackson  against  the  Creeks.  The  drug 
shop  must  have  been  a  dreary  place  when  the  meteoric  father 
returned  to  Florida  and  Jackson. 

When  his  apprenticeship  was  up  young  Simms  entered  the 
law  office  of  Charles  R.  Carroll.  The  pleasant  relations  be 
tween  his  father  and  himself  suggest  that  the  father  may  have 
been  contributing  something  to  his  support.  The  study  of 
medicine  had  been  abandoned, — if  for  no  other  reason,  be 
cause  the  fates  so  often  decree  that  in  America  a  great  writer 
must  have  first  tried  to  be  a  lawyer.  Simms  filled  out  the 
tradition  completely  by  dividing  his  time  between  law-books 
and  verse-making.  Probably  not  all  his  odes  celebrated  pub- 


134  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

lie  men  like  Lafayette,  for  in  a  short  time  he  was  engaged  to 
be  married  to  Miss  Anna  Malcolm  Giles. 

Studies  and  poetry  and  love-making  were  all  interrupted 
by  a  visit  he  paid  his  father  near  Georgeville,  Mississippi,  in 
1824  or  1825.  The  journey  was  adventurous  and  his  stay  in 
the  border  country  must  have  been  the  realization  of  many 
of  his  boyhood's  day-dreams.  He  visited  numerous  settle 
ments  with  his  father,  unconsciously  storing  up  material  for 
his  romances,  and  he  wrote  poems  on  Indian  subjects  in 
spired  by  visits  to  the  Creeks  and  Cherokees.  Once  in  the 
wilderness  he  found  he  had  been  resting  by  a  grave,  which 
in  spite  of  his  father's  skepticism  he  liked  to  think  was  the 
burial  place  of  some  follower  of  De  Soto. 

This  visit  of  several  months  was  of  great  importance  in  the 
young  man's  development.  It  was  the  first  traveling  he  had 
done,  and  it  took  him  through  varied  and  picturesque  scenes 
to  a  romantic  world.  But  at  the  time  he  seems  to  have  been 
chiefly  stirred  by  his  father's  suggestion,  occasioned  by  the 
visit,  that  he  should  remain  in  the  Southwest.  The  elder 
Simms  had  no  happy  memory  of  Charleston  and  he  prophe 
sied  vehemently,  after  his  fashion,  that  his  son  would  not 
succeed  there.  Perhaps  the  young  man's  admiration  for  his 
father  was  tempered  with  some  distrust  of  his  judgment  in 
practical  affairs,  or  he  may  have  inherited  the  paternal  de 
termination  ;  in  any  case  he  decided  to  make  his  career  in  his 
native  city  and  accordingly  returned.  He  never  saw  his 
father  again.  In  1830  he  probably  visited  Mississippi  after 
his  father's  death,  on  March  28th  of  that  year. 

II 

The  career  that  Simms  began  upon  his  return  from  visiting 
his  father  was  in  some  ways  as  sad  as  Poe's,  though  it  was  of 
perfect  honor.  He  lacked  the  social  position  necessary  to 
win  a  hearing  in  his  aristocratic  city;  he  was  doomed  always 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  135 

to  lack  an  appreciative  audience  in  the  South;  and  he  came 
so  late  in  the  troubled  decades  before  the  Civil  War  that 
neither  North  nor  South  had  much  attention  to  spare  for  his 
type  of  story.  Cooper's  fame  was  achieved  in  the  most  es 
tablished  parts  of  the  country  during  the  most  peaceful  years 
between  the  Revolution  and  the  Civil  War;  before  Simms  be 
gan  to  write  Cooper  had  preempted  the  audience  that  cared 
for  his  kind  of  romance.  Simms  was  evidently  facing  as 
many  difficulties  as  possible  when  he  entered  the  same  field 
in  troubled  years  and  in  a  section  of  the  South  whose  quietest/ 
moments  politically  were  but  intervals  in  volcanic  spasmsf 
There  was  something  immensely  heroic  in  the  vigor  and  as 
tounding  copiousness  with  which  Simms  dedicated  his  genius 
to  his  own  times  and  his  own  section  —  writing  to  make  a 
place  for  himself  in  the  South  and  especially  in  Charleston, 
and  writing  equally  to  give  the  South  the  place  in  literary 
esteem  which  he  believed  its  ideals  deserved.  The  motive  of 
patriotism  was  no  more  compelling  in  Brockden  Brown  or 
Cooper  than  in  Simms;  he  certainly  paid  a  bitterer  price  for 
his  patriotism  than  any  other  American  writer,  —  wasting  his 
genius  in  limitless  heart-breaking  journalism,  that  the  losing 
cause  might  have  a  voice. 

But  of  course  he  was  untroubled  by  any  glimpse  of  his  fate 
when  in  1825  he  returned  to  Charleston.  In  August  died 
General  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  still  remembered  for 
his  reply  to  the  French  commissioners,  "Millions  for  defence, 
but  not  a  cent  for  tribute."  On  September  14  the  Charleston 
Courier  noticed  a  monody  on  the  dead  statesman.  The  poem 
was  anonymous  and  in  spite  of  the  friendly  notice  it  achieved 
an  early  and  complete  oblivion;  no  copy  of  it  has  been  found. 
It  was  Simms'  first  noted  appearance,  though  some  of  his 
more  youthful  verses  had  filled  space  in  the  newspapers.  Be 
fore  his  visit  to  his  father  he  had  written  a  tragedy  on  Roder 
ick,  the  last  of  the  Goths,  and  he  now  offered  it  to  a  Charles- 


C 


136  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

ton  manager, — who  accepted  it  and  would  have  produced 
it,  had  not  Simms  withdrawn  it  as  the  result  of  some  quarrel. 
These  initial  disappointments  were  no  more  than  young 
writers  by  tradition  are  heir  to,  but  in  the  case  of  Simms  they 
seem  to  be  tragic  omens. 

In  January,  1827,  Simms  published  his  Lyrical  and  Other 
Poems,  the  first  volume  in  which  he  formally  laid  claim  to  the 
laurel.  For  thirty-five  years  he  was  to  put  forth  books  of 
verse,  convinced  of  his  authentic  election  to  Parnassus.  Of 
that  conviction  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak  here,  beyond  reg 
istering  sincere  regret  that  verse  and  magazine  writing  kept 
him  so  largely  from  training  his  story-telling  genius.  But 
from  his  own  point  of  view,  no  matter  what  posterity  thinks 
of  it,  Simms  was  justified  in  his  verse-writing;  nothing  else 
gave  him,  perhaps,  a  pleasure  quite  so  keen.  And  any  exer- 

_  cise  which  fostered  his  idealism  should  be  gratefully  thought 
of,  for  altogether  too  many  incidents  of  his  life  were  of  a  na- 

_ture  to  darken  his  ideals,  as  writer  and  man. 

Late  in  1827  he  published  a  second  volume  of  verse,  entitled 
Early  Lays,  more  interesting  than  the  first  because  of  certain 
pieces  based  on  the  legends  of  his  region — material  he  was 
later  to  use  advantageously  in  prose.  In  September  of  the 
following  year  he  joined  a  fellow-poet  named  Simmons  in 
publishing  and  editing  a  magazine — the  first  of  his  many  ad 
ventures  of  that  sort — called  The  Tablet,  or  Southern  Monthly 
Literary  Gazette.  Simms'  lifelong  sacrifices  to  supply  the 
South  with  a  magazine  are  pathetic.  This  first  attempt, 
after  a  few  numbers,  was  a  failure,  and  the  two  editors  bore 
the  loss.  Perhaps  Simms  gained  something  in  local  fame  not 
easily  commensurable.  On  the  Fourth  of  July,  1828,  he  had 
delivered  an  oration  before  the  Palmetto  Society,  at  the  cele 
bration  of  the  battle  of  Fort  Moultrie;  evidently  he  was  to  be 
a  marked  man  even  in  his  unappreciative  city.  His  biog 
rapher  makes  the  interesting  suggestion  that  among  his  au- 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  137 

dience  at  Fort  Moultrie  may  have  been  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  sta 
tioned  there  at  the  time  as  E.  A.  Perry  in  Battery  H,  First 
Artillery. 

The  largest  part  of  his  attention  was  given,  while  it  lasted, 
to  his  magazine.  It  is  self-evident  that  his  law  studies  were 
well  in  the  past.  He  had  indeed  been  admitted  to  the  bar  on 
April  17,  1827,  had  pleaded  his  first  cases  with  much  skill  and 
energy,  and  had  made  in  the  first  year  six  hundred  dollars — 
no  bad  beginning  for  that  profession.  But  his  heart  was  set 
on  literature,  and  in  his  optimistic  temperament  practical 
considerations  did  not  count.  That  he  had  reason  enough  to 
be  practical  may  be  inferred  from  his  marriage  to  Miss  Giles 
on  October  19,  1826 — six  months  before  he  had  been  ad 
mitted  to  the  bar.  In  November  of  1827  was  born  a  daughter, 
Anna  Augusta,  the  only  child  of  this  marriage.  His  wife  ap 
parently  had  no  money,  and  how  they  managed  to  get  on  at 
all  is  not  clear. 

Simms  may  have  been  living  on  the  capital  of  a  small  legacy 
from  his  mother.  Upon  the  extinction  of  his  magazine  he  in 
vested  the  remnants  of  this  little  fortune  in  a  daily  paper,  the 
City  Gazette,  which  in  1830  he  began  to  publish,  in  partner 
ship  with  E.  S.  Duryea,  a  printer.  The  editing  of  this  paper 
was  destined  to  launch  Simms  into  the  political  maelstrom  of 
those  days, — to  lead  him  as  far  as  possible  from  the  literary 
pursuits  for  which  he  had  abandoned  the  law.  As  if  to  re 
cover  his  balance,  he  published  towards  the  end  of  1829  a 
volume  of  verse,  Cortes,  Cain,  and  Other  Poems,  in  which  ap 
peared  his  best  known  poem,  The  Lost  Pleiad;  and  in  1830 
democracy  had  its  say  in  The  Tri-Color,  or  The  Three  Days 
of  Blood  in  Paris,  a  book  of  verse  that  had  the  luck  to  be  re 
printed  in  London  before  the  year  was  out. 

He  was  soon  to  have  experience  of  mob  democracy  at  home. 
When  he  assumed  control  of  the  Gazette,  South  Carolina  had 
for  some  years  been  in  the  throes  of  the  nullification  move- 


138  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

ment — the  movement  led  by  Calhoun,  which  strove  to  estab 
lish  the  right  of  a  state  to  reject  or  ignore  any  Federal  legis 
lation  which  it  did  not  approve.  The  point  of  debate  at  the 
time  was  the  tariff,  which  almost  caused  South  Carolina  to 
secede;  but  the  real  issue,  as  thoughtful  men  foresaw,  was  not 
nullification  but  secession — the  question  whether  a  state  under 
any  circumstances  had  the  right  to  leave  the  Union/.  Simms 
held  consistently  through  his  life  that  a  state  had  no  such 
right  except  in  the  very  last  extremity — a  position  which  made 
secession  logical  for  him  when  slavery  was  at  stake,  but  which 
now  held  him  as  logically  on  the  Union  side.  A  matter  of 
tariff  rates  did  not  in  his  opinion  justify  nullification  or  seces 
sion.  On  the  Fourth  of  July,  1831,  he  read  a  National  Ode 
at  a  Union  celebration,  and  his  editorials  were  firmly  against 
the  nullifiers. 

At  first  he  happened  to  be  on  the  winning  side  in  the  local 
elections,  and  in  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  spirit  of  Southern 
journalism  he  allowed  to  appear  in  his  paper  certain  personal 
attacks,  which  provided  him  with  enemies  against  the  day  of 
adversity.  In  1831  the  followers  of  Calhoun  were  victorious, 
and  celebrated  with  a  torch-light  procession  which  passed  the 
office  of  the  Gazette.  Simms  was  standing  outside  the  door. 
The  crowd  hissed  him,  and  he  retorted  by  calling  them  cow 
ards,  whereupon  he  almost  lost  his  life.  His  unmoved  courage 
when  the  crowd  made  a  rush  at  him,  awed  them  or  at  least 
gained  their  respect,  and  they  were  persuaded  by  cool-headed 
leaders  to  march  on.  It  was  the  most  spectacular  appearance 
Simms  ever  made  in  his  own  city;  the  only  profit  of  it,  as  of 
most  of  his  appearances  there,  was  a  very  empty  glory.  His 
paper  immediately  began  to  feel  the  effect  of  his  unpopularity. 
Subscriptions  declined  steadily  until  on  June  7, 1832,  he  pub 
lished  a  notice  that  the  paper  was  now  in  the  hands  of  Wil 
liam  Laurens  Poole.  Duryea  had  died  in  March.  The  notice 
in  the  Gazette  made  it  quite  clear  that  Simms  was  a  bankrupt. 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  139 

He  had  suffered  heavier  losses.  His  first  little  home  had 
been  burned  down — a  foretaste  of  his  final  domestic  tragedy. 
His  father  had  died  in  Mississippi;  Mrs.  Gates,  his  beloved 
grandmother,  had  died  soon  after;  and  on  February  20,  1832, 
he  buried  his  wife.  A  strong  nature  might  well  have  been 
crushed  by  this  tragic  sequence.  That  Simms  bore  his  fate 
and  lived  to  know  sufferings  that  make  these  seem  light,  is  at 
once  a  measure  of  the  man  and  of  his  sorrows.  His  father's 
doleful  prophecy  of  a  career  in  Charleston  had  come  true. 
Simms  stirred  himself  to  begin  life  afresh,  and  leaving  his 
daughter  presumably  with  his  wife's  relations,  he  came 
North. 

Ill 

How  unfortunate  Simms  was  in  the  particular  time  in 
which  he  lived  is  illustrated  by  his  attitude  toward  the  North. 
It  was  there  that  his  genius  was  appreciated  and  his  books 
published;  his  literary  career  would  probably  have  been  im 
possible,  even  in  peace,  without  the  support  the  North  from 
the  first  gave  him.  But  his  political  sympathies — his  patriot 
ism,  as  he  would  have  said — withheld  him  from  the  full  en 
joyment  of  what  the  North  offered.  Many  years  later,  in  a 
book  that  is  not  without  strong  sectional  prejudice/he  writes 
pleasantly  of  his  first  days  with  Bryant  and  the  other  apprecia 
tive  spirits  who  gave  him  welcome.  "When  I  first  visited 
New  York,  Hoboken  was  as  favorite  a  resort  with  me,  of  an 
afternoon,  as  it  was  to  thousands  of  your  citizens.  Its  beau 
tifully  sloping  lawns  were  green  and  shady.  Now!  Oh!  the 
sins  of  brick  and  mortar!  There,  I  first  knew  Bryant  and 
Sands,  and  wandered  with  them  along  the  shores,  at  sunset, 
or  strolled  away,  up  the  heights  of  Weehawken,  declaiming 
the  graceful  verses  of  Halleck  upon  the  scene."  The  con 
trast  with  the  scenes  he  had  left  behind  him  in  South  Caro 
lina  speaks  for  itself,  and  one  wishes  his  fate  had  here  given 


140  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

him  a  period  of  high-minded  leisure  in  which  to  concentrate 
and  organize  his  powers. 

But  his  recent  losses  impelled  him  to  an  active  life  even  in 
those  summer  days  that  he  remembered  so  pleasantly.  On 
Whis  arrival  from  the  South  he  had  found  the  cholera  raging  in 
,  (/  New  York,  and  for  a  time  had  stopped  at  Hingham,  Massa 
chusetts.  In  this  village  he  had  worked  on  his  long  poem 
\Jb  Atalantis,  a  Story  oj  the  Sea,  which  was  published  in  New 
York  a  few  months  later,  in  1832.  When  the  cholera  scare 
was  over,  Simms  met  Bryant,  as  he  says,  and  began  a  friend 
ship  that  was  ended  only  by  his  own  death.  Through  this 
fortunate  introduction  to  literary  New  York  he  seems  to  have 
met  most  of  the  interesting  men,  and  he  had  an  opportunity 
to  indulge  his  love  of  the  theater.  He  heard  Fanny  Kemble 
and  met  George  Holland,  and  later  became  the  intimate  friend 
of  Edwin  Forrest. 

When  his  ambitious  poem  was  safely  through  the  press, 
Simms  returned  to  Charleston,  much  cheered  by  the  visit. 
But  there  was  nothing  for  him  to  do  in  the  South  just  then, 
except  to  visit  his  little  daughter  and  hear  generous  friends 
praise  his  new  poem;  so  in  1833  he  was  North  once  more,  this 
time  settled  in  New  Haven.  He  was  ready  for  any  profitable 


literary  enterprise,  and  finding  among  his  papers  a  murder, 
story  which  he  had  written  for  his  Gazette,  he  elaborated  it 
into  his  first  novel,  Martin  Faber.  This  book  was  put  into 
print  by  a  New  Haven  publisher,  but  the  Harpers  accepted 
it  and  put  it  on  sale,  and  it  had  an  immediate  success.  Much 
of  the  author's  satisfaction  was  spoiled  by  the  charge  that  the 
/  book  was  imitated  from  an  English  novel,  published  at  the 
same  time;  and  though  the  charge  was  easily  answered,  it  in 
duced  in  Simms  a  frame  of  mind  that  almost  led  to  a  duel  with 
a  gentleman  who  had  spoken  slightingly  of  him.  The  only 
completely  satisfying  result  of  the  book  was  the  money  it 
brought,  and  Simms  was  not  the  type  of  man  to  consider 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  141 

4hat  a  substitute  for  the  honor  he  desired  to  win  by  his  pen. 
\This  first  novel,  however,  is  of  little  literary  importance  be 
yond  the  fact  that,  as  its  sale  proved,  it  was  very  readable. 
So  were  all  his  stories.    Here  he  was  attempting  simply  a  tale 
of  horror,  common  enough  at  the  time,  as  the  suspicion  of 
plagiarism  showed ;  and  though  he  had  a  natural  bent  toward  I 
realistic  horrors,  he  was  never  an  artist  in  his  management  of  t 
such  effects,  least  of  all  in  his  early  attempts.    Simms  felt  this 
himself,  and  omitted  Martin  Faber  from  the  revised  editioi 
of  his  works. 

In  the  meanwhile  he  had  been  doing  various  kinds  of  mag 
azine  writing,  some  of  it  interesting,  the  rest  of  it  mere  hack 
work.  Several  stories  written  in  this  way  he  now  collected 
into  an  unimportant  volume  published  in  Philadelphia,  in 
1833,  under  the  title  The  Book  oj  My  Lady :  a  Melange.  In  the 
same  year  he  found  time  to  start  a  new  magazine  in  Charles 
ton — at  least  he  brought  out  one  number  of  it.  The  wide  ex 
perience  from  publishing  in  so  many  cities  perhaps  encouraged 
him  to  call  this  paper  The  Cosmopolitan.  It  failed  at  once. 

In  July,  1834,  Simms  published  in  New  York  his  first  no 
table  book,  Guy  Rivers.  The  reception  of  this  story  was  the 
most  encouraging  that  the  author  had  yet  enjoyed.  The 
Northern  critics  fell  completely  under  the  charm  of  a  new 
scene  and  a  new  genius  in  the  perennial  romance  of  adven 
ture.  The  book  was  published  the  next  year  in  England. 
One  curious  result  of  its  popularity  was  an  offer  from  a 
Charleston  merchant  to  send  Simms  to  Europe — an  oppor 
tunity  for  study  which  the  author  greatly  desired  but  was  too 
proud  to  accept. 

Guy  Rivers  belongs  to  the  group  of  novels  known  as  "border/ 
romances."    It  is  not  perhaps  the  best  of  them;  certainly  ffis 
not  among  the  best  of  all  Simms'  stories.    Its  merit  is  that  it 
begins  the  series  of  books  that  the  author  and  his  admirers 
were  glad  to  recognize  as  his;  if  Martin  Faber  may  be  passed 


142  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

over,  ^Guy  Rivers  is  the  first  of  his  stories.    That  it  is  a  tale  of 
/adventure,  with  a  Scott  hero,  normally  stupid,  and  a  villainous 
/  outlaw  for  the  secondary,  romantic  hero,  and  with  a  correct 
y  heroine  to  console  the  proper  youth  at  the  end — is  sufficient 
Characterization  of  it.    But  the  scene  is  laid  in  the  frontier 
region  Simms  knew,  and  therefore  the  book  was  accepted  by 
his  countrymen  as  a  new  discovery  of  the  romance  they  had 
overlooked,  at  their  very  doors.    In  this  they  were  right;  and 
if  Simms  has  grave  faults  of  -structure  and  style,  if  he  indulges 
at  times  in  a  species  of  the  romantic  that  almost  spells  itself 
claptrap,  he  is  still  entitled  to  remembrance  as  a 


coverer,  in  less  degree  but  no  other  kind  than  Cooper  and 
Scott.  His  hero  and  his  heroine  were  the  pattern  of  youth  in 
'  \  his  own  state,  as  they  appeared  to  his  romancing  ideal.  The 
scenes  in  Georgia  which  he  clothed  with  these  adventures  were 
easily  recognizable,  and  doubtless  he  had  some  thought  that 
they  would  hold  the  tradition  of  his  story,  as  the  Scotch  land 
scape  holds  the  Waverley  novels,  or  Sleepy  Hollow,  the  ride  of 
Ichabod  Crane.  That  Simms  failed  in  any  such  permanent  re 
sults  is  explained  by  those  faults  of  writing  which  mar  this  and 
all  of  his  books,  and  which  can  be  studied  to  greater  advan 
tage  in  his  next  novel,  his  masterpiece. 
.  Immediately  after  the  success  of  Guy  Rivers  Simms  began 
The  Yemassee,  and  in  a  year  it  was  published  in  New  York. 
Its  success  was  complete.  The  same  showers  of  praise  fell 
upon  it  that  had  greeted  Guy  Rivers,  but  the  critics  were 
learning  wisdom  and  their  judgment  of  this  story  was  dis 
cerning.  No  other  story  of  the  author's  is  now  so  much  read, 
and  common  opinion  holds  that  none  other  is  so  good.  If  it 
were  worth  while  to  attempt  to  disturb  the  tradition  which  is 
kindest  to  Simms'  fame,  one  might  challenge  this  opinion  in 
favor  of  some  of  his  shorter,  livelier  tales;  but  it  is  fairer  to 
examine  the  book  as  it  stands,  with  the  author's  genius  and 
limitations  written  large  in  it. 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  143 

Perhaps  the  legends  that  Mrs.  Gates  used  to  tell  her  grand 
son  now  proved  his  inspiration,  or  his  knowledge  of  the  Ye- 
massees  may  have  been  gained  from  his  wide  reading  in  the 
history  of  his  state.  In  1715,  when  Charles  Craven  was  gov 
ernor  of  Carolina,  the  Indians  planned  a  wholesale  insurrec 
tion  against  the  settlers.  They  were  partly  incited  by  the 
Spanish  in  Florida,  and  partly  by  their  own  fears,  as  we  are 
told  in  the  story,  that  the  white  men  would  possess  their  lands 
and  drive  them  into  the  swamps.  Their  rising  was  terribly 
successful  on  the  borders,  but  when  they  advanced  towards 
Charleston  they  were  met  and  totally  defeated  by  the  governor 
and  his  army  of  twelve  hundred.  The  Indians  were  dispersed 
and  took  refuge  in  Florida. 

These  facts  Simms  used  as  the  basis  of  his  story,  and  Gov 
ernor  Craven,  masquerading  gratuitously  as  Gabriel  Harri 
son,  is  his  hero.  The  Indians  he  drew  from  observations 
made  among  the  Creeks  and  Cherokees,  while  he  was  visiting 
his  father.  The  scenery  in  the  book  was  that  of  his  native 
state,  described  as  carefully  as  though  he  had  been  writing 
history;  the  rivers  and  places  were  accurately  named,  so  that 
the  natural  illustration  for  the  volume  is  a  map.  Only  such 
episodes  as  the  defense  of  the  blockhouse  were  complete  ro 
mancing.  In  short,  he  set  out  to  write  an  historical  novel, 
which  by  virtue  of  the  quality  of  his  genius  became  a  tale  of 
adventure. 

It  is  the  solid  intention  of  the  story  which  has  made  it  per-  /. 
manent.  History  was  not  the  author's  end  in  the  border  ro 
mances,  and  without  an  organized  ground-plan  of  fact,  his 
too  facile  incidents  resulted  always  in  chaos.  But  in  this  book 
he  seems  to  have  denied  himself  many  a  thrilling  episode,  and 
it  is  our  business  to  be  grateful;  as  it  is,  the  story  contains 
enough  adventure  to  furnish  an  artist  like  Cooper  with  sev 
eral  plots.  Simms  also  appears  to  have  turned  resolutely 
away  from  the  Cooperesque  portrayal  of  the  Indian,  probably 


LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

because  he  could  not  have  reproduced  that  aspect  of  savage 
life  from  observation;  for  this  reason  The  Yemassee  is  pe 
culiar  among  Indian  stories  for  the  infinitesimal  amount  of 
"woodcraft"  it  contains. \  The  Last  of  The  Mohicans,  pub 
lished  nine  years  before,  had  set  the  tradition  of  Indian  craft 
which  still  has  authority  with  us,  though  later  frontiersmen 
•  would  call  Cooper  to  account  for  excessive  romance;  yet 
Simms  gives  his  red  men  superior  acuteness  in  only  one  place, 
and  there  Sanutee' s  keen  hearing  is  compared  with  nothing 
sharper  than  Richard  Chorley's  common  shrewdness.  The 
savages  are  susceptible  to  panic,  as  white  men  might  be; 
Harrison  and  his  dog  put  one  section  of  the  Jndians  to 
rout  before  the  blockhouse.  Nor  are  they  of  superhuman 
strength — otherwise  Chorley  would  not  have  had  Sanutee  at 
his  mercy. 

Yet  the  true  romance  of  the  story  is  in  the  Indian  part  of  it. 
More  heroic,  certainly,  are  Cooper's  red  men  than  Sanutee  and 
his  tribe,  but  Simms  endows  his  warriors  with  a  natural  hu 
manity  that  has  its  own  charm.  Sanutee,  the  last  of  a  proud 
race,  his  wife  Matiwan  and  his  son  Occonestoga,  call  to  mind 
at  once-^and  the  comparison  is  illuminating — that  other  In 
dian  family,  Chingachgook,  Hist  and  Uncas.  The  early 
death  of  Hist  and  the  tragic  killing  of  Uncas  save  those  two 
most  poetic  characters  for  a  kind  of  immortal  youth.  It  was 
the  poet  in  Cooper  that  thus  visualized  the  extinction  of  the 
Indian  race.  To  depict  Chingachgook  as  the  drunkard  in 
The  Pioneers  was  also  a  poet's  work,  recognizing  an  ugly 
truth  with  the  greatest  economy  of  ugliness.  If  any  of  the 
three  must  be  degraded,  Chingachgook  could  best  be  spared. 
Imagine  the  horror  of  besotting  Hist  or  Uncas  with  whisky 
from  the  settlements!  Yet  Simms  is  fully  aware  that  when  the 
savage  encounters  civilization,  it  is  his  son  who  is  lowered  by 
the  contact,  since  the  younger  nature  is  less  fixed  and  more 
easily  lured.  The  commonest  tragedy  for  the  Indians  must 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  145 

have  been  always,  as  it  is  now  in  the  reservations,  the  fading  of 
the  race's  ideals  in  their  young  men.  /  Qccpnestpga,  in  the 
story,  is  the  only  son  of  the  great  chief.  He  has  his  father's 
prowess  and  all  the  fineness  of  his  noble  descent;  he  is  tender  :. 
as  well  as  brave,  and  his  devotion  to  his  mother,  Matiwan, 
lights  his  character  even  at  its  worst;  his  friendship  for  the 
English  also  indicates  his  quick-witted  appreciation  of  the 
civilization  that  fascinates  him.  But  he  is  enslaved  to  drink, 
and  every  fine  inherited  trait,  every  purpose  of  his  own, 
wastes  in  him  like  water  poured  upon  the  sands.  The  truth 
of  the  picture  is  at  once  made  darker  and  brighter,  so  to  speak, 
by  the  fact  that  Occonestoga  is  powerless  to  resist  his  beset 
ting  vice;  he  thereby  loses  in  respect,  but  gains  much  in  pity, 
and  his  mother's  love  for  him  is  more  touching. 

Something  is  gained  further  for  the  reality  of  Sanutee 's 
character  by  making  him  an  exceptional  figure  among  his 
people;  he  is  unable  to  persuade  the  other  chiefs  not  to  sell 
their  lands  to  the  English.  Perhaps  it  is  more  romantic  to 
think  of  the  Indian  as  making  forlorn  stands  against  encroach 
ing  civilization,  driven  to  the  wall  against  his  will;  but  it  is 
probably  truer  to  show  such  a  race  as  Simms  does,  inclined 
to  accept  the  worst  side  of  civilization  first,  selling  the  graves 
of  their  fathers,  as  Sanutee  says,  for  gold  and  whisky.  That 
a  fine  minority,  a  romantic  aristocracy  should  survive,  is 
easier  to  believe  than  that  all  should  be  heroes;  and  therefore 
Sanutee  in  his  companionless  nobility  is  a  convincing  good 
Indian. 

In  one  sad  respect  Simms  is  but  too  probably  a  follower  of 
Cooper;  he  trjes  to  be  humorous.  It  might  seem  in  general 
hard  to  establish  any  literary  imitation  by  so  common  a 
phenomenon,  but  the  reader  who  knows  Cooper's  peculiar 
attempts  at  sprightly  witticism  or  humor  of  character  can 
never  be  in  doubt  when  he  tastes  that  fare  again.  Simms  even 
takes  over  Cooper's  stock  comic  character,  the  pedantic  bore, 


146  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

who  monopolizes  the  talk  with  set  speeches  on  his  one  topic. 
In  The  Yemassee  Dr.  Constantine  Maximilian  Nichols,  who 
parades  his  patriotism  at  every  turn,  asserts  his  readiness  to 
die  for  his  country,  yet  is  always  safely  in  the  background,  is 
the  very  worst  type  of  the  Cooper  bore.  Both  Cooper  and 
Simms  were  too  serious  and  in  a  way  too  elaborate  to  be 
masters  of  the  lighter  shades  of  character  drawing.  Simms 
here  suffers  also  from  a  faulty  sense  of  structure,  which  allows 
him  to  add  an  irrelevant  personage  simply  for  the  purposes 
of  his  supposed  humor;  Dr.  Nichols  is  in  no  way  necessary  to 
the  plot,  nor  does  he  really  enter  it. 

Like  Scott  and  Cooper  Simms  makes  a  contrast  to  his  ro 
mance  by  occasional  scenes  of  horror — horror  in  all  these 
/stories  being  the  one  legacy  from  the  Gothic  school.  The 
scenes  of  horror  in  The  Yemassee  are  among  the  best  that 
•  Simms  pictured,  because  they  are  not  too  grimly  realistic,  and 
they  have  a  certain  right  to  the  room  they  take.'  (The  best  of 
them  is  the  great  scene  of  the  book,  in  which  Matiwan  kills 
her  son  to  save  him  from  disgrace.  Second  in  importance 
artistically,  though  better  known,  is  the  description  of  Bess 
Matthews'  encounter  with  the  rattlesnake.  Finely  wrought 
as  this  scene  is,  it  is  cheap  artistically  because  it  is  unprepared 
for  and  has  no  consequences.'  Some  credit  is  due  to  the  au 
thor  for  refraining  in  one  place  from  the  sort  of  crude,  even 
revolting  horror  he  too  often  indulges  in;  when  the  Indians 
are  swimming  after  Harrison's  canoe  and  are  themselves  pur 
sued  by  alligators,  the  reader  with  any  experience  of  Simms' 
,  habit  nerves  himself  for  a  bit  of  gruesome  tragedy;  but  Harri 
son  escapes  the  Indians,  the  Indians  escape  the  alligators, 
and  the  reader  also  is  spared. 

The  easy  solution  of  this  scene  is  typical  of  a  certain  fault 

in  this  novel,  which  can  be  said  to  mar  most  of  Simms'  work. 

^jH^His  imagination  is  extraordinarily  fertile  in  incident,  so  much 

so  that  he  has  not  time  in  any  book  to  develop  the  situations 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  147 

that  fill  the  story  to  overflowing.  Rapidity  is  well  enough  in 
plot,  but  sequence  counts  for  something  too,  and  it  is  a  sort  of 
disappointment  to  any  but  a  boyish  reader  to  find  the  hero, 
even  in  a  book  of  melodramatic  adventure,  plunged  into  a  new 
dilemma  in  the  beginning  of  every  chapter,  and  lifted  into 
safety  bodily  in  the  last  line.,,  The  rescuing  angel  is  over 
worked  and  sometimes  not  sufficiently  agile.  When  somebody 
has  somebody  else  by  the  throat  and  the  victim  already  sees  the 
knife  or  the  tomahawk  starting  on  its  almost  instantaneous  de 
scent,  the  reader  learns  to  know  that  either  a  shot  will  ring  out 
from  the  forest  and  the  fierce  eyes  of  the  murderer  will  be  ob 
served  to  lose  their  fierceness  in  the  glaze  of  death,  or  somehow 
that  knife  will  obligingly  delay  its  stroke  till  a  figure  leaps  upon 
the  murderer's  back  and  chokes  him  off.  The  rattlesnake 
charms  Bess,  and  Occonestoga  happens  along  at  the  last 
moment  and  transfixes  the  reptile  with  his  arrow.  Harrison's 
negro 'attendant  is  captured  and  taken  to  the  Spanish  ship, 
but  Harrison  immediately  captures  the  Spanish  captain  and 
trades  him  off  for  the  slave.  Harrison  is  fettered  in  the  In 
dian  lodge,  but  Matiwan  simply  walks  in,  holds  an  animated 
conversation,  unbinds  him  and  goes  out  with  him — both 
stepping  carefully  over  the  sleepy  figures  of  the  Indians  on 
guard.  The  reader  is  surprised  that  those  Indians  wake  at 
all,  even  when  Harrison  steps  on  one  of  them. 

But  the  worst  illustration  of  this  too  facile  solving  of  dan 
gerous  situations  is  the  whole  episode  of  the  fight  around  the 
blockhouse — the  part  of  the  story  which  is  usually  counted, 
along  with  the  rattlesnake  scene,  as  most  effective.  Certainly 
the  fight  is  described  vividly,  and  the  sally  of  the  smith  gives 
a  true  thrill,  but  when  the  Indians  set  fire  to  the  blockhouse 
and  there  is  no  apparent  escape  for  the  white  people,  how  does 
the  author  save  them?  He  has  neither  the  patience  nor  the 
ingenuity  of  Cooper  in  a  similar  predicament,  to  let  his  garri 
son  wait  in  the  bottom  of  a  dry  well  until  the  house  is  burned 


148  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

over  their  heads  and  the  foe  have  retreated.  He  simply  tells 
us  that  the  Indians  at  this  moment  were  obliged  to  go  some 
where  else  to  fight  another  foe,  and  the  garrison,  much  re 
lieved,  opened  the  door  and  walked  out. 

Simms  is  too  good  a  story-teller,  however,  to  seem  ridicu 
lous  even  in  these  solutions  while  his  book  is  in  our  hands. 
The  very  rapidity  of  the  incidents  leaves  no  opportunity  for 
too  minute  examination  at  the  time.  It  is  only  when  the  book 

I  is  closed  that  we  reflect  soberly  on  the_waste_of  undeveloped, 
undisciplined  material.  And  one  episode,  which  has  been 
justly  said  to  be  the  great  moment  of  the  story,  is  a  shining 
exception  to  all  this  criticism.  /  The  chapter  in  which  Matiwan 
brains  her  own  child  with  herHomahawk  so  that  his  soul  will 
not  be  lost  is  in  every  way  greatly  told,  though  other  less  ad 
mirable  sections  of  the  story  are  better  known.;  What  gives 
the  episode  its  quality  is  that  the  problem  is  carried  through, 
for  once,  to  a  logical  conclusion.  The  reader  hardly  expects 
Occonestoga  to  be  executed,  or  excommunicated  from  his 
tribe;  the  previous  experience  of  the  book  suggests  that  some 
escape  will  open  to  him.  When  his  mother  kills  him  the  solu 
tion  is  felt  at  once  to  be  both  logical  and  true,  since  it  is  the  one 
thing  she  would  do,  and  the  paradox  of  such  a  deed  as  the 
work  of  sublime  love  lifts  the  episode  into  something  higher 
than  mere  adventure. 

The  faults  that  have  been  suggested  in  The  Yemassee  may 
appear  to  sum  up  into  a  severe  charge,  but  they  indicate  the 
condition  of  Simms'  genius  rather  than  the  worth  of  the  book. 
Simms  was  a  prodigious  worker, — reckoning  by  the  volume 
of  his  work.  He  was  not  a  careful  writer,  nor  did  he  ever 
listen  to  criticism.  He  lacked  the  artist's  conscience  and  per 
severance;  he  might  have  been  richer  in  such  polishing  virtues, 
had  he  been  poorer  in  ideas  and  themes.  But  a  story  may  be 
out  at  elbows  so  far  as  art  is  concerned,  and  still  be  memor 
able, — as  some  of  Brockden  Brown's  work  would  indicate. 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  149 

And  The  Yemassee  is  a  fine  story,  true  in  scene  and  character, 
rich  in  incident,  and  filled  with  noble  conduct  such  as  we  ask 
of  romance. 

IV 

After  The  Yemassee  appeared  Simms  went  on  immediately 
to  other  work  which,  if  not  quite  so  good,  is  at  least  among 
his  best.  In  August,  1835,  a  new  romance  from  his  pen  was 
advertised,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  The  Partisan:  a  Tale  oj 
the  Revolution  was  published  in  New  York.  A  legend  at 
taches  to  the  composition  of  this  story,  almost  too  fabulous 
for  belief,  but  showing  the  conception  Simms'  contemporaries 
had  of  his  working  methods.  His  biographer  tells  the  inci 
dent,  as  recounted  by  James  Harper.  Simms  came  North 
with  the  manuscript  half  finished,  and  all  he  had  written  was 
soon  in  type.  He  was  going  out  of  town  for  a  few  days,  when 
Mr.  Harper  objected  that  the  printers  had  nothing  to  work  on 
in  that  period.  Simms  asked  for  pen  and  paper  and  a  quiet 
room,  and  in  half  an  hour  produced  enough  copy  to  keep  the 
type-setters  busy  till  he  returned.  With  proper  allowances 
this  tradition  probably  does  justice  to  the  speed  of  the  South 
erner's  pen,  and  explains  numerous  defects  in  his  art.  On  the 
whole  the  incident,  if  it  were  quite  true,  would  be  no  more  re 
markable  than  Cooper's  writing  and  paging  the  last  chapter 
of  The  Spy  before  he  knew  how  the  plot  was  to  end. 

In  1836  appeared  Mellichampe:  a  legend  of  the  Santee. 
Fifteen  years  later  Simms  published  Katharine  Walton,  or  The 
Rebel  oj  Dorchester,  but  in  spite  of  the  interval  these  two  books 
were  intended  to  form  a  sort  of  trilogy  with  The  Partisan,  and 
it  is  convenient  to  consider  them  together.  The  third  is  the 
true  sequel  of  the  first;  Mellichampe  has  little  in  common  with 
either.  But  Simms  was  not  too  conscientious  about  his  own 
plots,  and  the  series,  no  matter  how  loosely  bound,  repre 
sents  a  solid  kind  of  romancing.  The  scene  is  laid  around 


150  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Dorchester,  where  Simms  had  delighted  as  a  boy  to  trace  the 
movements  of  Marion's  men,  or  to  hear  an  old  inhabitant  tell 
some  of  the  local  legends.  His  material  was  therefore  well  in 
hand,  and  his  historical  conscience  was  roused;  in  most  of 
these  patriotic  romances  a  desire  to  be  accurate  in  his  facts 
and  his  geography  was  his  best  substitute  for  artistic  disci 
pline. 

There  is  much  in  these  stories  to  remind  one  of  Cooper's 
Spy.  The  historical  atmosphere,  the  shifting  movements  of 
the  troopers,  the  daring  bands  of  partisans,  at  first  seem  much 
alike  in  both.  A  close  comparison,  however,  brings  out 
Cooper's  art — a  quality  too  often  denied  him,  and  emphasizes 
also  the  larger  scene,  the  more  humorous  and  spectacular 
events  that  distinguish  Simms'  work.  Simms  had  more  his 
tory  at  his  command  than  Cooper  had.  It  is  not  simply  that 
he  writes  three  long  volumes  to  Cooper's  one,  but  he  has  an 
old  and  interesting  society  to  reproduce,  independently  of  the 
battle  scenes  and  war  motives,  and  the  period  the  three  stories 
cover  includes  important  fights,  whereas  The  Spy  depicts  only 
skirmishes.  Simms  has  no  central  historical  figure  like  Wash 
ington;  on  the  other  hand,  the  minor  characters  in  his  cycle 
were  drawn  from  life,  as  far  as  he  could  get  at  it  from  Charles 
ton  records  and  legends.  One  family  in  particular,  the  Wai- 
tons,  are  the  center  of  the  series,  taking  the  place  of  an  indi 
vidual  hero. 

The  Partisan  illustrates  the  great  attention  its  author  was 
giving  to  the  historical  basis  of  his  story;  in  several  places  the 
romance  passes  from  fiction  to  a  bare  historical  record.  Its 
astonishing  virtue  is  the  great  spirit  with  which  the  adventu 
rous  moments  are  recounted.  Singleton,  the  hero,  who  at 
the  end  of  the  series  marries  Katharine  Walton,  is  somewhat 
too  heroic  to  be  interesting  as  a  character,  and  Colonel  Wal 
ton  is  at  best  a  substantial  lay-figure.  But  Singleton's  ad 
ventures,  especially  his  daring  rescue  of  Walton  at  the  close 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  151 

of  the  first  novel,  are  self-sufficient  even  without  character 
analysis.  Colonel  Walton,  too,  is  made  interesting  by  the 
danger  he  undergoes.  His  escape  from  hanging  makes  him 
in  a  way  the  hero  of  the  last  novel  in  the  series,  for  the  for 
tunes  of  the  other  characters  depend  upon  his,  and  he  chal 
lenges  attention  actively  as  a  leader  of  the  partisan  troop. 

Yet  it  must  be  confessed  frankly  that  Simms  is  no  master  of 
portraiture;  still  less  does  he  depict  character.  The  women 
who  appear  in  these  and  other  stories  are  generally  paler  to 
the  imagination  than  Cooper's  worst — and  nothing  harsher 
need  be  said.  Like  Cooper,  Simms  delights  in  a  formal 
pattern  of  social  behavior,  which  when  garbed  in  a  blue  gown 
or  a  red,  is  intended  to  become  to  the  reader's  imagination 
a  personality,  distinct  from  another  pattern  in  white.  It  is 
chiefly  by  their  geographical  location  and  their  external  ap 
pearance  that  the  female  characters  are  told  one  from  the 
other;  and  as  Simms  is  generally  careless  in  the  external  de 
scription,  often  they  cannot  be  told  apart  at  all.  Perhaps  if 
any  woman  in  the  three  novels  would  be  recognizable  when 
met  in  real  life,  it  would  be  Moll  Harvey,  Katharine  Walton's 
rival,  yet  it  is  only  by  careful  inference  that  the  reader  is  able 
to  detect  the  color  of  her  eyes  and  hair.  He  is  discouraged  in 
the  effort  by  this  sort  of  dithyramb, — serviceable,  if  ever,  only 
to  keep  the  Harpers'  type-setter  busy:  "Moll  Harvey  was  of 
middle  size  and  most  symmetrical  figure.  Ease  and  grace 
were  natural  to  her  as  life  itself;  but  her  motion  was  not  simply 
that  of  ease  and  grace.  There  was  a  free,  joyous  impulse  in 
her  movements,  an  exquisite  elasticity,  which  displayed  itself 
in  a  thousand  caprices  of  gesture,  and  seemed  to  carry  her 
forward  buoyantly  as  a  thing  possessing  the  infinite  support 
and  treasure  of  the  air.  As  song  to  ordinary  speech,  such  was 
the  relation  which  her  action  bore  to  the  common  movements 
of  her  sex.  A  fairy  property  in  her  nature  seemed  to  bring 
with  her  the  spring  and  all  its  flowers  where  she  came;  and 


: 


152  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  loveliness  which  appeared  to  ray  out  from  her  person,  as 
she  walked  or  danced,  compelled  the  involuntary  homage  of 
the  eye,  making  the  thought  forgetful  of  all  search  or  inquiry 
except  through  that  single  medium." 

In  some  of  these  books  the  conversation  occasionally  spar 
kles,  to  the  great  encouragement  of  the  reader.  But  these 
bright  spots  are  due  to  the  insertion  of  clever  bits  of  repartee 
current  in  Charleston  tradition.  They  rarely  come  very  nat 
urally  from  the  lips  into  which  Simms  inserts  them,  and  the 
author  makes  the  illusion  more  difficult  by  stating  in  a  scru 
pulous  foot-note  where  the  witticism  was  first  uttered.  Of 
course  it  is  useless  to  take  a  romancer  to  task  for  his  dialogue, 
if  his  genius  is  solely  in  adventure;  but  Simms'  hasty  methods 
of  writing  cannot  be  defended,  and  to  them  largely  may  be 
laid  his  failure  to  cover  his  tracks  or  build  up  his  characters. 
What  he  lost  by  not  revising  his  work  may  be  illustrated 
again  from  Moll  Harvey.  When  she  has  cheated  Balfour  of 
his  hope  to  win  Katharine  Walton,  it  apparently  occurs  to 
Simms  that  a  girl  would  need  a  strong  motive  to  become  the 
murderess  of  Colonel  Walton;  the  love  story  as  told  so  far  does 
not  justify  her.  Simms  therefore  hints  that  Moll  Harvey  had 
been  Balfour's  mistress.  "  There  was  a  story  and  relations 
between  them,"  he  says,  "of  which  we  nave  not  heard."  It 
is  a  pity  we  have  not  heard;  for  if  she  had  lived  through  a 
tragic  past  her  mad  jealousy  would  have  been  interesting, 
not  wooden  from  the  start,  and  Balfour's  devilish  character 
would  have  seemed  less  a  thing  of  merely  theatrical  terror. 

Two  characters  only  remain  notable,  from  the  three  novels 
— Lieutenant  Porgy,  whose  career  continued  through  the  Rev 
olutionary  romances,  and  Whitherspoon,  the  faithful  scout  in 
Mellichampe.  To  describe  chivalry,  personal  loyalty  and  in 
tegrity,  comes  easy  to  a  man  like  Simms — the  danger  usually 
being  that  such  a  character  lends  itself  to  maudlin  exagger 
ation.  In  Whitherspoon  Simms  manages  to  keep  within  ar- 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  153 

tistic  bounds,  and  the  scout  is  easily  thought  of  with  Cooper's 
men.  iPorgy  has  been  called  a  prose  FalstafF;  his  rotundity, 
his  boastfulness,  and  his  general  fatness  physical  and  mental, 
encourage  the  notion.  But  it  seems  the  author  meant  him  as 
a  burlesque  of  himself  in  certain  moods.  The  likeness  is  not 
now  recognizable.  Porgy's  boastfulness  and  his  love  of  good 
eating  might  well  be  set  up  as  claims  to  further  kinship  with 
Parolles  and  Friar  Tuck;  in  the  method  by  which  his  humor 
is  developed — monologue  assisted  by  timely  questions — he 
might  derive  from,  or  anticipate,  negro  minstrelsy. 

"  'Here  I  am  at  home,'  he  says.  'The  Santee  did  well 
enough;  but  there's  a  sweetness,  a  softness,  a  plumpness,  a 
beauty  about  bird  and  beast  along  the  Ashley,  that  you  find 
in  the  same  animals  nowhere  else.  God  bless  my  mother ! ' 

"  'For  what  in  particular,  Lieutenant?' 

"  'That  she  chose  it  for  my  birthplace.  I  shouldn't  have 
been  half  the  man  I  am  born  anywhere  else;  shouldn't  have 
had  such  discriminating  tastes,  such  a  fine  appetite,  such  a 
sense  of  the  beautiful  in  nature.'  ' 

Simms'  feeling  for  history  was  at  its  strongest  in  Katharine 
Walton, — which  explains  why  that  story  is  somewhat  less  in 
teresting  than  The  Partisan.  From  the  earlier  book  the  in-  -A  * 
cidents  of  the  light-korse  bands  are  continued,  and  Marion's 
men,  breaking  cover  at  unexpected  places,  give  the  story  its 
movement  and  charm.  But  undoubtedly  Simms  in  this 
volume  cared  more  about  the  portraits  of  Charleston  society, 
the  traditions  he  had  heard  all  his  life  in  his  native  city.  If 
Charleston  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  been  as 
rich  in  notable  people  as  London,  Simms  might  have  given 
us  as  important  a  gallery  as  we  view  in  Henry  Esmond  or  The 
Virginians;  but  alas  for  local  pride!  None  of  the  portraits 
he  labored  at  bear  remembered  names;  only  a  passing  refer 
ence  to  the  home  of  Cotesworth  Pinckney  stirs  the  reader 
with  a  little  thrill  of  recognition.  Simms'  own  account  of  the 


154  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

book  on  the  whole  is  just,  and  we  may  well  leave  it  with  his 
comment:  "a  large  proportion  of  the  work,  and  much  of  the 
interest,  will  be  found  to  consist  in  the  delineation  of  the 
social  world  of  Charleston,  during  the  Revolutionary  period. 
These  delineations  are  so  many  different  studies,  pursued 
during  a  series  of  many  years,  and  under  the  guidance  of  the 
most  various  and  the  best  authorities.  The  matter,  in  fact, 
is  mostly  historical,  even  when  merely  social.  The  portraits 
are  mostly  of  real  persons.  The  descriptions  of  life,  manners, 
customs,  movements,  the  social  aspects  in  general,  have  all 
been  drawn  from  sources  as  unquestionable  as  abundant. 
The  social  reunions,  in  many  instances,  as  described  in  the 
story,  were  real  occurrences.  The  anecdotes,  the  very  rep 
artees,  though  never  before  in  print,  are  gathered  from  tradi 
tion  and  authority."  A  story  so  pieced  together  may  fail  of 
the  highest  success  in  romance,  but  the  method  was  not  a 
lazy  one;  the  reader  thinks  kindly  of  Katharine  Walton,  as  an 
honorable  document  in  its  author's  character. 

V.{ 

Immediately  after  the  publication  of  Mellichampe  Simms 
married  his  second  wife,  Miss  Chevillette  Roach,  of  Barn- 
well,  South  Carolina.  Miss  Roach  lived  with  her  father,  Mr. 
Nash  Roach,  at  Woodlands,  their  plantation,  which  soon  be 
came  known  as  the  home  of  the  novelist.  Even  before  the 
estate  came  into  his  control  through  the  death  of  his  father- 
in-law,  in  1858,  Simms  was  to  all  purposes  owner  of  Wood 
lands  and  dispenser  of  its  hospitalities.  Mr.  Roach  was  a 
chronic  sufferer  from  the  gout;  perhaps  he  had  brought  with 
him  from  England  those  pleasant  eighteenth-century  habits 
of  conviviality  that  are  supposed  to  usher  in  gouty  old  age. 
It  is  certain  that  his  son-in-law  fell  in  naturally  with  any  such 
household  customs,  and  under  his  regime  the  entertaining  at 
Woodlands  became  famous.  Bryant  and  other  Northern 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  155 

friends  came  here  and  felt  the  charm  of  the  place;  Simms' 
Southern  friends  of  course  visited  him  more  often.  The 
summers  he  spent  at  Charleston  or  in  the  North,  but  in  the 
cool  months  he  was  busy  writing  in  the  fine  library  at  Wood 
lands,  or  managing  the  estate, — no  light  task. 

These  were  the  happiest  years  Simms  was  to  know.  His 
wife  seems  to  have  been  a  woman  of  character  and  charm; 
his  own  fortunes  were  fairly  established,  his  reputation  gave 
him  an  honored  position,  and  the  dignified  plantation  home 
afforded  all  the  leisure  and  luxury  a  writer  needed.  It  is  clear 
he  made  good  use  of  his  prosperity.  Although  his  hospitali 
ties  consumed  much  time,  he  held  himself  rigorously  to  a 
large  amount  of  literary  work  every  day, — none  but  a  genius 
of  his  perseverance  could  have  accomplished  so  much.  In 
these  years  his  resemblance  to  Scott  appeared  in  many  ways— 
in  the  variety  of  his  human  interests,  in  his  industry,  and  in 
his  turn  for  medieval  hospitality.  His  social  gifts  were  great; 
in  contrast  with  Cooper,  he  maintained  all  his  life  that  high 
standard  of  lovable  charm  that  is  proverbial  of  the  Southern 
gentleman.  Vehement  as  his  opinions  were,  he  lacked  no 
charity  towards  other  men,  and  his  trying  losses  never  em 
bittered  him.  If  he  failed  of  the  highest  accomplishment  in 
literature,  at  least  his  life  is  something  for  Americans  to  be 
proud  of,  for  no  other  of  our  great  writers  of  fiction  save  Ir 
ving  was  so  lovable  and  so  gifted  among  his  fellow-men. 

He  was  a  voluble  talker  on  all  subjects,  on  some  of  which 
his  discourse  must  have  been  thin,  yet  from  all  accounts  very 
interesting.  If  he  monopolized  the  conversation,  making 
himself  the  arbiter  of  every  question  and  winning  among  his 
friends  a  certain  comparison  to  Dr.  Johnson,  perhaps  it  was 
the  Celt  in  him  more  than  the  Southerner;  his  father  be 
queathed  him  that  vehemence,  and  enriched  his  talk  also  with 
a  kind  of  wit,  a  turn  for  epigrams  and  little  verses.  One  sus 
pects  that  the  scenes  in  Charleston  ball-rooms,  in  Katharine 


156  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Walton,  may  be  reliable  clues  to  the  sort  of  conversation 
Simms  was  master  of — a  trifle  elaborate  and  premeditated 
here  and  there,  but  intellectually  alert. 

It  is  easy  to  recall  him  as  he  appeared  then — strongly  built, 
inclined  to  stoutness,  of  a  noble  bearing.  His  face  was  not  a 
literary  one;  the  keen  eye  and  the  firm  set  of  the  mouth  sug 
gests  the  man  of  action.  But  something  intellectual,  if  mas 
sive,  is  read  in  the  high  forehead  and  in  the  total  expression 
of  the  features.  Looking  on  his  portrait,  one  is  aware  of 
largeness  and  heroism. 

Altogether  Simms  at  Woodland  must  have  represented  a 
fine  type  of  the  Southerner  before  the  war, — a  slaveholder, 
treating  his  slaves  with  thoughtful  affection,  himself  enjoying 
the  leisure  and  culture  of  an  old  world  aristocrat.  There  is 
something  curious  in  the  fate  that  made  him  thus  typical;  un 
doubtedly  he  would  have  espoused  the  Southern  cause  with 
the  same  conviction  and  ardor  even  if  he  had  not  been  in 

\  position  to  know  from  experience  the  best  arguments  for  its 
V'  social  system;  but  being  the  man  he  was,  in  the  position  he 

v  had  come  to  occupy,  he  became  a  sort  of  exponent  of  his 
people,  justifying  their  cause  if  that  had  been  possible,  and 
suffering  the  full  weight  of  their  tragedy.  No  Southerner  was 
probably  ever  more  thoroughly  convinced  than  he  of  the 
righteousness  of  slavery,  and  in  equal  measure,  of  the  mas 
ter's  duty  to  the  slave.  The  sixty  or  seventy  negroes  on  his 
place  found  in  him  their  best  friend.  He  would  send  a  slave 
to  Charleston  to  consult  a  physician,  paying  the  man's  ex 
penses  as  well  as  giving  him  this  practical  liberty.  Each 
slave  family  was  permitted  to  raise  chickens  and  vegetables, 
which  Simms  bought  from  them — thus  recognizing  their 
right  to  the  profit  of  their  labor.  He  was  considered,  by  those 
who  saw  no  other  side  to  the  question,  to  be  an  argument  for 
the  beneficence  of  slavery  as  an  institution,  and  he  himself, 
like  many  Southerners  of  refinement  and  goodness,  appar- 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  157 

ently  believed  that  all  other  slaveholders  were  equally  philan- 
thropical. 

For  a  while  the  problem  did  not  bother  him  greatly;  he  was 
busy  and  happy  with  his  writing.  That  Katharine  Walton 
did  not  immediately  follow  Mellichampe  must  be  explained 
by  the  officious  criticism  of  some  friends,  who  persuaded  him 
that  his  native  state  was  not  the  rich  soil  needed  for  produc 
ing  romantic  plots.  He  listened  to  their  argument,  laid  aside 
the  last  member  of  his  trilogy,  and  wrote  Pelayo;  a  Story  of 
the  Goth,  which  was  something  of  a  failure,  though  in  1838, 
the  year  of  its  appearance,  its  author's  prestige  would  carry 
for  at  least  a  respectable  distance  anything  he  wrote,  He 
knew  his  mistake,  and  in  the  introduction  to  Katharine  Wal-: 
ton  he  speaks  with  some  pride  of  the  possibilities  in  South 
Carolina's  history  for  an  indefinite  number  of  romances,  An 
interesting  suggestion  has  been  made  that  perhaps  he  tried 
to  write  romances  on  foreign  subjects  just  because  his  greater 
rival  Cooper  had  failed  in  the  attempt.  That  may  well  be 
so;  but  if  it  be,  Simms  deserved  failure  for  transgressing  his 
own  principles.  He  always  knew  the  advantage  to  be  got 
from  developing  native  material.  Cooper  in  his  excursions 
had  a  clear  conscience,  because  it  was  necessary  to  depict 
foreign  scenes  in  order  to  illustrate  his  thesis — the  superiority 
of  democratic  over  feudal  institutions.  But  one  may  easily 
become  too  subtle  over  such  points;  a  good  story  carries  with 
it  its  own  ethics, — a  poor  story  has  none.  Pelayo  and  its  se 
quel  seven  years  later,  Count  Julian,  or  The  Last  Days  oj 
The  Goth,  are  forgotten  books,  whereas  The  Bravo  and  The 
Headsman  still  have  admiring  readers. 

In  this  year,  1838,  Simms  collected  some  short  tales,  his 
faith  in  which  has  not  been  justified — Carl  Werner;  an  Imag 
inative  Story;  with  other  Tales  oj  Imagination.  This  collec 
tion  with  the  novel  called  The  Damsel  of  Darien,  may  be 
passed  over  charitably,  as  examples  of  their  author's  worst. 


158  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  a  man  of  his  temperament,  com 
mitted  to  hasty  methods  of  writing,  should  have  a  critical 
knowledge  of  himself;  Simms  loved  all  the  children  of  his  pen 
without  distinction,  and  was  happy  in  editing  and  republish- 
ing  several  volumes  that  should  have  not  been  printed  a  first 
time. 

No  strong  suspicion  of  the  general  poorness  of  his  work  in 
these  two  or  three  years  troubled  him,  but.  he  got  as  near  to  the 
truth  as  to  wonder  whether  his  books  were  not  selling  on  the 
strength  of  his  name.  Accordingly  he  published  anonymously 
Richard  Hurdis,  or  The  Avenger  oj  Blood,  in  1838.  In  this 
story  he  reverted  to  the  type  of  border  romance  in  which  he 
had  first  won  his  public;  it  was  his  natural  material.  But  he 
did  not  learn  much  from  the  experiment;  when  this  anony 
mous  book  succeeded  he  seems  to  have  proved  to  himself 
that  all  his  other  writings  had  succeeded  on  their  merits.  He 
continued  to  work  this  old  vein  in  a  sequel,  Border  Beagles;  a 
Tale  of  Mississippi,  1840,  and  in  Beauchampe,  or  the  Ken 
tucky  Tragedy,  1842. 

The  first  and  the  second  of  these  stories  are  tales  of  des 
perate  adventure,  founded  on  the  exploits  of  the  Murrell  gang 
of  robbers  in  the  Southwest.  The  facts  for  these  tales  Simms 
got  personally  from  Virgil  A.  Stewart,  who  had  captured 
Murrell,  and  from  Stewart's  own  account  of  his  experiences. 
The  books  are  purely  sensational;  they  deal  with  criminal 
rather  than  patriotic  warfare  and  accordingly  are  reduced  to 
the  level  of  the  dime  novel,  but  they  are  well  told  so  far  as  the 
interest  is  concerned.  Beauchampe  is  of  another  type;  one 
\vonders  how  Simms  could  bring  himself  to  write  it.  The  plot 
is  a  careful  narrative  of  a  murder  case  that  attracted  atten 
tion  in  Kentucky  in  1828.  One  Kentucky  Colonel  discovered 
that  his  wife  before  her  marriage  had  been  seduced  by  an 
other  Kentucky  Colonel,  and  the  enraged  husband  promptly 
killed  the  villain.  For  this  murder  he  was  executed,  after  he 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  159 

and  his  wife  had  attempted  suicide.  Dealing  with  this  sensa 
tion  of  the  moment,  the  novel  had  a  large  sale  in  Kentucky. 
Fourteen  years  later  Simms  returned  to  the  subject  in  Charle- 
mont,  or  The  Pride  of  The  Village,  which  also  had  a  large  sale 
in  the  district  of  the  murder.  Much  as  one  must  deplore  the 
bad  taste  that  permitted  Simms  to  dabble  in  such  a  wretched 
mire,  one  must  admit  his  sincerity;  he  apparently  thought, 
after  faulty  standards  not  uncommon  in  his  time,  that  he  was 
serving  the  cause  of  domestic  virtue  by  advertising  this  sorry 
tragedy,  and  from  his  contemporaries  he  received  praise  for 
consigning  "the  seducer  and  slanderer  of  female  innocence" 
to  that  "immortality  of  infamy  which  he  so  richly  de 
served." 

It  must  be  confessed  that  happy  as  his  home  life  was  in 
these  years,  and  industrious  as  he  was,  Simms  was  turning 
out  little  that  deserves  permanent  record.  Almost  all  that  he 
wrote  then  has  been  totally  forgotten;  the  only  purpose  in 
mentioning  it  here  is  to  give  a  just  picture  of  his  application 
and  perseverance.  Two  novels  were  produced  in  1841, 
neither  of  which  was  worthy  of  its  author.  The  Kinsmen,  or 
the  Black  Riders  oj  The  Congaree,  now  known  as  The  Scout, 
is  a  tale  of  two  half-brothers  on  opposite  sides  in  the  Revolu 
tionary  struggles  in  South  Carolina.  The  story  adds  nothing 
to  the  pictures  Simms  had  drawn  in  The  Partisan  and  Melli- 
champe,  though  the  character  of  the  scout,  John  Bannister, 
is  fine.  For  the  most  part  the  sensationalism  hi  which  his  pen 
had  recently  dipped  gave  the  tale  an  ignoble  cast.  The  second 
novel  of  the  year,  Confession;  or  The  Blind  Heart,  is  com 
pounded  of  the  sediment  of  the  Kentucky  tragedy  plus  some 
bad  Shaksperian  criticism.  Convinced  that  Othello  was  not 
jealous,  and  that  there  was  room  in  literature  for  a  truly  jeal 
ous  Othello,  he  worked  out  his  theory  relentlessly  in  an  un 
lovely  story. 

From  1842  to  1850  Simms  wrote  no  memorable  book.    His 


160  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

pen  was  perhaps  busier  than  ever,  but  the  clouds  of  the  com 
ing  war  were  gathering  and  he  had  other  work  in  hand  than 
romance.  Though  he  had  taken  the  Union  side  in  the  nullifi 
cation  days,  he  was  altogether  a  states'  rights  man  in  the  ques 
tion  of  slavery,  and  he  threw  Himself  vehemently  into  the 
great  quarrel.  In  his  latest  novels  where  he  allowed  his 
characters  at  times  to  speak  his  views  as  to  the  future  of  the 
United  States,  it  is  made  clear  that  he  expected  and  welcomed 
a  separation  of  North  and  South.  To  a  Northerner  it  often 
seems  that  every  Southerner  had  a  different  reason  for  seced 
ing,  and  some  notable  leaders,  like  Lee,  are  figures  of  sorrow 
ful  doom  because  they  fought  with  regret,  and  from  complex 
motives.  Simms  is  not  at  all  of  this  class.  Whatever  the 
great  Virginians  might  find  in  the  issue,  of  inevitable  loyalty 
to  their  state  or  defense  of  their  invaded  homes,  Simms  was 
an  aggressive  advocate  of  slavery,  and  saw  in  that  institution 
the  one  cause  and  justification  of  the  coming  war.  He  is 
therefore  typical  of  the  Northerner's  notion  of  the  Southerner; 
what  he  stood  for  was  what  Mrs.  Stowe  attacked  in  her  por 
trait  of  Uncle  Tom's  first  master  and  Eva's  father. 

To  lend  his  pen  to  the  cause,  Simms  turned  from  his  fiction 
to  magazine  work,  editing  for  a  while  the  Southron,  the  South 
ern  Quarterly  Review,  a  small  Georgia  magazine  called  Orion, 
and  a  formidably  named  venture  of  his  own,  the  Southern  and 
Western  Monthly  Magazine  and  Review,  usually  spoken  of 
as  Simms'  Magazine.  Like  other  publications  of  the  kind  in 
the  South,  these  magazines  found  in  their  sprouting  a  mere 
point  of  departure  from  which  to  decay.  Simms  understood 
their  doom  better  than  most  Southerners,  but  he  was  satis 
fied  with  the  dozen  or  less  expiring  numbers  of  each  that 
gave  him  an  opportunity  to  speak  out.  For  example,  he  would 
print  this  challenge  to  the  abolitionists:  "We  beg,  once  for 
all,  to  say  to  our  Northern  readers,  writers  and  publishers, 
that,  in  the  South,  we  hold  slavery  to  be  an  especially  and 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  161 

wisely  devised  institution  of  heaven;  devised  for  the  benefit, 
the  improvement,  and  safety,  morally,  socially,  and  phys 
ically,  of  a  barbarous  and  inferior  race,  who  would  otherwise 
perish  by  famine  or  by  filth,  by  the  sword,  by  disease,  by 
waste,  and  destinies  forever  gnawing,  consuming,  and  finally 
destroying." 

These  vague  horrors  of  the  negro's  threatening  fate  suggest 
the  stump  orator's  rhetoric,  but  Simms  could  state  the  issue 
simply  enough.  At  a  later  time  he  writes:  "If  it  be  admitted 
that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  a  wrong  done  to  the  negro,  the 
question  is  at  an  end.  No  people  can  be  justified  for  continu 
ance  in  error  and  injustice.  Once  admit  that  there  is  a  wrong 
and  a  crime,  and  it  must  be  followed  by  expiation  and  atone 
ment.  In  the  South  we  think  otherwise.  We  hold  the  African 
under  moral  and  just  titles,  founded  upon  his  characteristics, 
his  nature,  his  necessities  and  our  own ;  and  our  accountability 
is  to  the  God  of  both  races.  We,  alone,  are  in  possession  of 
the  facts  of  the  case,  and  our  consciences  are  in  no  way 
troubled  in  relation  to  our  rights  to  hold  the  negro  in  bondage. 
Perhaps  our  consciences  are  a  thought  too  easy;  but  we  be 
lieve  ourselves  quite  equal  to  the  argument  whenever  we  ap 
pear  before  the  proper  tribunal.  But  we  are  a  people,  a  na 
tion,  with  arms  in  our  hands,  and  in  sufficient  numbers  to 
compel  the  respect  of  other  nations;  and  we  shall  never  sub 
mit  the  case  to  the  judgment  of  another  people,  until  they 
show  themselves  of  a  superior  virtue  and  intellect." 

Here  was  plain  talk,  but  be  it  said  to  Simms'  credit,  it  was 
probably  more  enlightened  and  more  diplomatic  than  any 
thing  he  heard  from  his  associates.  There  was  nothing  frigid 
just  then  in  South  Carolinian  speech.  What  Simms  did  not 
say  in  print  he  could  say  in  his  public  orations,  of  which  he 
delivered  a  good  many,  and  from  1844  to  1846  he  represented 
his  county  in  the  state  legislature.  His  success  as  the  cham 
pion  of  the  ideas  of  his  section  got  him  finally  the  nomination 


1 62  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

for  lieutenant-governor  of  South  Carolina,  in  1846,  but  he 
lost  the  election  by  one  vote. 

His  journalistic  work  had  led  him  into  some  pleasant  by 
paths.  He  took  to  writing  criticism,  partly  because  he  wanted 
to,  and  partly  because  his  magazines  needed  filling.  His  best 
work  in  that  direction  is  collected  in  the  volume  called  Views 
and  Reviews  in  American  Literature,  History,  and  Fiction, 
1846, — a  volume  made  notable  by  the  admirable  essay  on 
Cooper.  More  scholarly  in  intention,  but  less  happy,  was  the 
Supplement  to  the  Plays  o)  William  Shakspeare,  1848,  an 
edition  of  seven  apocryphal  plays,  which  exposed  but  too 
plainly  the  inadequate  training  of  the  editor.  More  satisfac 
tory  were  the  biographies  of  some  of  his  favorite  heroes, — 
Marion,  1844;  Captain  John  Smith,  1846;  the  Chevalier 
Bayard,  1848;  and  General  Greene,  1849 — this  last  a  work 
which  he  pretended  only  to  edit,  but  which  is  probably  his 
own.  The  four  lives  do  credit  to  the  author's  heart;  they  il 
lustrate  his  hero-worship,  undimmed  in  trying  days. 

During  these  years  of  general  writing  Simms  was  coming 
to  his  own  in  England.  Several  of  his  novels  had  been  printed 
there  and  had  no  mean  measure  of  popularity.  In  Germany, 
too,  his  best  romances  were  following  Cooper's  in  translation. 
These  facts  must  have  given  Simms  a  just  self-respect  which 
explains  much  of  his  optimism.  His  home  life  continued 
prosperous  and  happy,  though  sorrow  shared  the  house  when 
three  of  his  children  died  in  infancy.  Three  others,  born 
before  1848,  grew  up — a  son  named  after  him,  and  two  daugh 
ters,  Mary  Lawson  and  Chevillette  Eliza. 

VI 

By  1852  Simms  had  made  some  excursions  into  the  drama; 
indeed,  he  had  written  everything  but  an  epic.  In  this  year, 
however,  he  fortunately  returned  to  his  best  vein  with  the  ro 
mance  called  at  first  The  Sword  and  The  Distaff,  or  Fair,  Fat, 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  163 

and  Forty,  republished  two  years  later  as  Woodcraft.  This 
book  concludes  the  adventures  of  Lieutenant  Porgy  and  the 
other  surviving  characters  of  the  Revolutionary  trilogy;  in 
many  aspects  it  is  the  best  of  the  distended  series,  full  of 
spirited  characters  and  remarkable  scenes.  No  other  of 
Simms'  novels  gives  perhaps  a  stronger  taste  of  his  quality,  the 
distinction  of  his  subject  and  manner  from  Cooper's.  Doubt 
less  many  a  boy,  attracted  by  the  title,  has  made  Simms'  ac 
quaintance  first  in  this  story;  and  he  can  still  recall  that  stirring 
panorama  of  the  embarking  British  army,  and  the  kidnapping 
of  Bostwick  and  his  reappearance  before  McKewn,  and  clear 
est  of  all,  the  examination  and  murder  of  the  outlaw  Norris. 
These  are  such  scenes  as  Stevenson  delighted  in,  ganglions 
of  romance,  which  embody  character  and  emotion  in  an  act 
or  attitude  remarkably  striking  to  the  mind's  eye. 

No  matter  how  undisciplined  his  genius,  Simms  could  not 
drive 'a  pen  over  so  many  thousand  pages  without  learning 
something  of  his  craft,  and  this  romance  is  swifter,  closer 
knit  and  simpler  than  anything  that  had  gone  before.  The 
plot  is  built  of  few  elements.  Porgy,  returning  from  the  war 
to  his  estate,  finds  himself  heavily  in  debt  to  an  unscrupulous 
spy  named  McKewn,  who  by  pretending  to  serve  both  British 
and  Americans  has  got  his  clutches  upon  much  valuable 
property,  including  Porgy's.  The  lieutenant  is  in  love  with 
Mrs.  Eveleigh,  a  rich  widow  whose  comfortable  estate  ad 
joins  his;  yet  his  attentions  are  free  from  mercenary  calcula 
tions.  McKewn  hires  several  ruffians,  led  by  Bostwick,  to 
steal  some  slaves  from  Mrs.  Eveleigh;  the  gang  overdo  their 
part,  attack  the  lady  herself,  and  get  into  a  most  sanguinary 
fight  with  her  son  and  her  overseer,  Fordham.  Porgy  and 
his  troopers  come  to  the  rescue;  the  remainder  of  the  story  is 
taken  up  with  the  actual  warfare  between  Bostwick  and 
Porgy,  and  the  legal  warfare  between  Porgy  and  McKewn. . 

Mrs.  Eveleigh  is  a  remarkable  character,  drawn  with  such 


164  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

individual  traits  that  she  suggests  no  counterpart  in  Simms  or 
Cooper.  She  is  a  woman  of  great  dignity,  yet  with  that  ca 
pacity  for  "managing"  which  is  usually  ascribed  to  New 
England  heroines.  She  has  both  humor  and  common  sense; 
there  is  never  the  slightest  danger  that  she  will  marry  the 
valiant  Porgy,  much  as  she  likes  him;  and  her  initial  success 
in  recovering  her  slaves  from  the  British  is  an  augury  of  her 
fitness  to  cope  with  McKewn.  Her  character  does  not  be 
long  to  romance  at  all;  the  charm  of  it  is  its  rounded  truth  to 
life.  Even  in  the  excitement  of  the  robber  attack  she  is  un- 
heroic,  though  brave;  Simms  describes  her  mingled  indigna 
tion  and  fright  with  a  tactful  art  that  saves  her  both  to  reality 
and  to  sympathy. 

Fordham,  her  overseer — the  trained  backwoodsman  and 
fighter,  is  one  of  Simms'  scouts,  far  different  from  Cooper's 
type.  He  too  is  in  no  way  superhuman;  in  the  story  he  be 
gins  his  adventures  by  being  knocked  senseless  and  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  the  robbers,  and  he  is  released  by  the  negro 
girl,  Jenny.  But  he  gives  the  impression  of  force  and  skill, 
and  his  loyalty  is  as  great  as  Leatherstocking's.  He  is  in  no 
respect  a  philosopher;  perhaps  that  makes  his  chief  distinc 
tion  from  the  Northern  scout;  he  is  simply  a  man  of  action  and 
he  rarely  talks.  His  relation  to  his  employer,  Mrs.  Eveleigh, 
illustrates  more  truly  than  Simms  perhaps  realized  the  demo 
cratic  ideals  that  would  follow  such  a  struggle  as  the  Revolu 
tion,  where  men  must  learn  to  reckon  with  each  other  in  terms 
of  intrinsic  manhood. 

This  unconscious  record  of  democracy  is  of  course  most 
clear  in  the  description  of  Porgy  and  his  band.  The  fat  lieu 
tenant  would  be  a  poor  encourager  of  class  feeling  under  any 
conditions,  and  in  the  guerilla  warfare  he  and  his  men  had 
become  sworn  brothers.  Yet  in  this  last  account  of  him  Porgy 
is  less  fat  to  the  imagination,  more  nearly  a  romantic  hero, 
than  in  the  other  stories.  For  one  thing,  he  appears  as  a 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  165 

leader,  instead  of  a  mere  follower  in  Marion's  camp  or  Single 
ton's;  and  his  private  troubles  give  occasion  for  more  dig 
nified  forbearance  than  he  had  been  credited  with.  He  is 
still,  however,  the  center  of  the  humor  of  the  story.  The  scene 
in  which  the  sheriff  comes  to  attach  his  property  and  finds  the 
covered  dishes  at  table  to  contain  convenient  pistols,  is  one  of 
the  best  comedy  episodes  in  our  literature,  funny  of  itself,  and 
true  to  the  characters  that  act  it.  And  Porgy's  twofold  at 
tempt  at  matrimony,  which  results  in  his  rejection  by  Mrs. 
Eveleigh  and  Mrs.  Griffin  almost  at  the  same  time,  is  from 
an  artistic  point  of  view  a  most  successful  solution  of  his 
career;  he  remains  unheroic  and  ludicrous,  and  the  reader  is 
satisfied  that  he  is  not  heartbroken,  since  he  could  transfer 
his  suit  so  quickly. 

The  power  Simms  had  developed  earlier  in  portraying  low 
villains  and  murderers  gives  to  this  story  some  of  its  most  strik 
ing  scenes.  Bostwick,  the  hired  ruffian,  is  at  first  simply  a 
stock  figure  from  the  rogue's  gallery,  but  as  the  story  pro 
gresses  he  becomes  a  most  interesting  individual.  Nothing 
like  him  had  appeared  before  in  the  American  novel.  When 
he  is  drugged  and  carried  off  to  sea,  he  gains  vastly  in  the 
reader's  sympathy;  at  the  close  of  the  story  he  is  ennobled 
into  an  incarnation  of  nemesis.  But  the  transformation  is 
logical, — he  loses  none  of  his  original  villainy,  and  his  whole 
course,  from  end  to  end,  is  seen  to  have  been  ordered  by  his 
own  perverted  moral  sense.  He  is  at  his  worst  when  with  his 
neglected  family.  To  speak  truth,  Mrs.  Bostwick,  ill-treated 
creature  that  she  is,  and  little  Dory,  her  saint-like  daughter, 
are  the  chief  disappointments  of  the  book.  How  tiresomely 
good  they  can  be  may  be  seen  at  the  end  of  the  fifty -fifth  chap 
ter,  where  little  Dory  tells  Arthur  Eveleigh  to  go  home  and 
ask  his  mother's  forgiveness  for  making  her  angry.  The  irrev 
erent  reader,  keyed  up  to  the  healthy  tone  of  adventure  every 
where  else  in  the  book,  finds  these  soft  spots  in  the  road  rather 


i66  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

slow  going,  and  feels  unwarranted  sympathy  with  the  father 
who  stays  away  from  that  home.  Yet  the  fact  remains  that 
Bostwick  treats  his  sickly  wife  cruelly,  and  he  is  least  interest 
ing  in  her  presence.  His  character  is  most  powerfully  brought 
out  in  the  great  episode  of  the  book,  the  trial  of  Norris,  where 
he  feels  justified  in  killing  the  tortured  comrade  who  is  about 
to  confess. 

That  Simms  could  have  written  so  stirring  a  romance  in  the 
midst  of  fierce  distractions  is  simply  another  proof  that  he  was 
a  born  story-teller.  He  was  in  the  thick  of  political  contro 
versy  these  days,  contributing  to  the  slavery  propaganda  and 
carrying  on  a  heated  warfare  with  Lorenzo  Sabine,  the 
Northern  historian,  who  had  cast  some  discredit  on  South 
Carolina's  share  in  the  Revolution.  At  another  season 
Simms'  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  his  state  might  have 
brought  him  through  the  debate  with  honor,  but  he  lost  his 
temper  and  indulged  in  general  compliments  at  the  expense  of 
Northern  patriots. 

In  1854  he  gave  some  successful  lectures  in  Virginia  and 
published  under  a  pseudonym  a  very  ambitious  story,  Vas- 
conselos:  a  Romance  of  the  New  World.  The  fortunes  of  De 
Soto  presented  admirable  material  for  the  romancer,  and 
Simms  had  kept  the  theme  in  mind  since  the  days  when  he 
had  visited  his  father  and  found  the  forgotten  grave.  The 
book  fails  because  of  the  author's  lack  of  taste — that  want  of 
artistic  sense  that  distinguishes  between  morbidly  interesting 
and  really  charming  incident.  The  story  has  plot  and  charac 
ter  and  fine  descriptions,  and  its  subject  is  great,  but  the 
glamor  of  romance  is  rubbed  off  it  in  so  many  places  that  it 
cuts  a  sorry  figure.  Simms  had  allowed  his  thoughts  to  dwell 
too  long  on  murder  stories  and  ruffianly  scenes;  his  imagina 
tion  now  filled  his  books  with  a  tiresomely  long  list  of  unde 
sirable  citizens. 

During  this  same  year  appeared  Southward  Ho! — the 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  167 

collection  of  stories  already  referred  to,  and  in  the  two  follow 
ing  years  he  completed  The  Forayers  and  its  sequel,  Eutaw, 
intended  to  form  the  connecting  links  between  Katharine 
Walton  and  Woodcraft.  In  the  rapid  interest  of  the  adventure 
and  the  general  atmosphere  of  guerilla  warfare  the'se  volumes 
hold  the  reader  almost  as  well  as  the  other  members  of  the 
series.  If  they  seem  to  fall  short  at  all,  it  is  because  the  other 
stories  have  preceded  them  and  the  reader  has  supped  a  bit 
too  full  of  horrors.  Porgy  and  Marion's  men,  the  English 
troopers  and  the  villainous  robber  gangs  that  made  the  war 
their  own  occasion,  still  pour  from  the  swamps  and  thickets, 
butcher  each  other  and  on  retiring  leave  a  corpse  or  two  swing 
ing  in  the  breeze.  A  very  little  of  that  sort  of  literature  goes  a 
long  way,  and  Simms  imagined  far  too  much  of  it.  There  is 
no  excuse  in  a  book  designed  to  give  pleasure  for  such  an 
episode  as  that  in  Eutaw,  where  Hurricane  Nell  arrives  just 
in  time  to  see  her  brother  hanged,  whom  she  had  tried  so  hard 
to  rescue. 

In  this  character  of  Hurricane  Nell  Simms  gave  expression 
to  his  interest  in  a  popular  kind  of  metaphysics;  and  what 
ever  the  scientific  weaknesses  might  be  in  his  knowledge  of 
psychology,  he  makes  an  impressive  artistic  use  of  it  in  this 
strange  creature,  gifted  with  second  sight.  Her  eccentric  ap 
parel,  her  horsemanship,  and  the  immunity  she  enjoys  among 
the  harmful  wild  creatures  of  the  swamps  give  her  outwardly 
a  weird  distinction,  and  her  astonishing  divinations  are  re 
ported  with  such  tact  that  the  reader  as  well  as  her  wretched 
brother  is  impressed,  if  not  convinced.  In  the  handling  of 
abnormal  character  Simms  often  shows  unexpected  shrewd 
ness.  It  would  have  been  tempting  to  most  romancers  to 
create  in  this  unusual  individuality  a  motive  center  for  the 
plot;  so  much  supernatural  wisdom  at  first  sight  ought  not  to 
go  to  waste.  At  least  Nell  could  have  a  controlling  influence 
in  the  events,  like  Norna  of  the  Fitful  Head.  But  in  real  life 


168  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  gift  of  second  sight  is  never  put  to  use, — indeed,  it  is  dis 
tinguished  from  ordinary  foresight  only  when  it  has  come  to 
nothing;  and  Simms  follows  his  historical  material  closely, 
leaving  Nell  as  a  tragic  figure  on  the  outskirts  of  his  story. 

Hell-Fire  Dick  and  Hurricane  Nell  give  Eutqw  an  advan 
tage  in  interest  over  The  Forayers.  Dick's  chance  acquaint 
ance  with  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  the  services  the  great  alle 
gory  renders  him,  are  things  to  remember  with  affection; 
little  that  Simms  wrote  is  more  charming.  Perhaps  it  is  a 
touch  of  sentimentality  that  associates  with  Bunyan's  book 
Henry  Travis's  reluctance  to  murder  a  defenseless  man,  and 
Dick  in  his  repentant  mood  is  a  curiously  warped  specimen  of 
morality,  but  in  his  soldier  interest  in  Christian's  warfare  he 
is  delightful.  The  secret  of  the  charm  is  Simms'  own  love  of 
Bunyan,  a  lifelong  passion;  by  ascribing  to  Dick  the  naive 
interest  a  child  would  take  in  the  book,  he  recorded  his  own 
memories  and  came  at  the  true  character  of  the  border  ruffian. 

VII 

These  volumes  completed  the  series  of  historical  romances 
of  the  Revolution.  They  mark  also  the  end  of  whatever  good 
fortune  Simms  was  to  enjoy.  From  the  moment  of  their  pub 
lication  the  great  war  closed  in  upon  him,  in  one  way  or  an 
other,  and  he  began  to  feel  the  edge  of  the  disaster  to  which  he 
and  his  nearest  friends  were  blindly  urging  their  state.  In  his 
trips  to  the  North,  which  he  had  made  through  all  these  years 
whenever  a  book  was  to  be  published,  he  did  what  missionary 
work  he  could  for  the  cause  of  slavery,  and  got  something  of  a 
reputation  for  his  vehement  haranguing  on  the  subject.  In 
the  winter  of  1856  a  Northern  lecture  tour  was  arranged  for 
him,  which  ought  to  have  benefited  both  himself  and  the 
country.  Unfortunately  he  began  the  tour,  at  a  lecture  in 
New  York  on  November  18,  with  a  reply  to  his  old  adversary, 
Sabine,  and  a  passing  attack  upon  Charles  Sumner.  His 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  169 

audience  listened  in  courteous  silence  for  an  hour  and  a  half, 
and  when  he  ended  they  gave  him  a  round  of  applause,  but  at 
his  next  lecture,  three  nights  later,  only  seventeen  people  ap 
peared.  Simms  abandoned  the  tour,  much  hurt  at  the  treat 
ment,  while  the  Northern  papers  congratulated  him  on  get 
ting  off  so  easily.  His  own  disappointment  was  probably  no 
greater  than  that  of  his  Northern  friends,  Bancroft,  Bryant, 
Duyckinck  and  others,  who  had  planned  the  tour. 

On  his  return  to  the  South  his  adventures  in  the  enemy's 
country  reflected  a  certain  credit  upon  him, — at  least  his 
friends  thought  so,  and  they  arranged  for  him  other  less  am 
bitious  tours.  He  was  becoming  also  something  of  a  dictator 
among  the  younger  Southern  writers,  most  of  whom  must 
have  met  him  in  his  innumerable  magazine  editings.  They 
formed  a  club  in  his  honor,  where  he  played  Dr.  Johnson  in  a 
broad  style  to  their  admiration,  rejoicing  much  in  their  gen 
erous  loyalty,  and  proud  of  his  nickname  among  them, 
"Father  Abbott."  In  their  youthful  idolizing  of  the  veteran 
writer  only  a  few  of  them  perceived  that  his  social  ways  be 
longed  to  a  departing  order,  nor  did  they  consider  it  other 
than  a  tribute  to  his  style  of  conversation  that  neighbors  two 
blocks  off  were  aware  of  it.  So  much  for  his  evenings  with  the 
club;  he  often  had  their  companionship  less  formally,  in 
bookshops  or  in  their  offices,  where  his  presence,  however 
welcome,  probably  made  sad  havoc  with  their  routine  duties. 
The  inevitable  blossom  of  all  this  enthusiastic  soil  was  an 
other  periodical,  Russell's  Magazine,  edited  by  Paul  Hayne 
and  W.  B.  Carlisle.  Simms  was  a  contributor,  and  the  ven 
ture  had  the  look  of  prosperity  until  the  war  killed  it  in  1860. 

But  there  were  some  of  the  literary  youth  of  South  Carolina 
who  resented  Simms'  leadership  and  managed  to  wound  his 
large  heart.  And  in  1858  the  yellow  fever  invaded  Charles 
ton  and  two  of  his  sons  died  in  the  same  day.  This  was  the 
sort  of  blow  from  which  not  even  a  heroic  nature  could  re- 


VH 


LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

cover.  A  month  later,  recalling  his  dead  father's  advice  not 
to  stay  in  Charleston,  Simms  wrote,  "  Thirty  odd  years  have 
passed,  and  I  can  now  mournfully  say  the  old  man  was  right. 
All  that  I  have  done  has  been  poured  to  waste  in  Charleston, 
which  has  never  smiled  on  any  of  my  labors,  which  has  stead 
ily  ignored  my  claims,  which  has  disparaged  me  to  the  last, 
has  been  the  last  place  to  give  me  its  adhesion,  to  which  I  owe 
no  favor,  having  never  received  an  office,  or  a  compliment,  or 
a  dollar  at  her  hands;  and,  with  the  exception  of  some  dozen 
of  her  citizens,  who  have  been  kind  to  me,  and  some  scores  of 
her  young  men,  who  have  honored  me  with  a  loving  sympathy 
and  something  like  reverence,  which  has  always  treated  me 
rather  as  a  public  enemy,  to  be  sneered  at,  than  as  a  dutiful 
son  doing  her  honor.  And  I,  too,  know  it  as  a  place  of  tombs. 
I  have  buried  six  dear  children  within  its  soil  !  Great  God  ! 
What  is  the  sort  of  slavery  which  brings  me  hither!" 

His  friends  tried  to  cheer  him,  and  he  did  what  he  could  for 
himself  by  writing  at  a  new  romance,  The  Cassique  oj  Kiawah, 
published  in  1859.  The  book  showed  that  Simms  still  had  the 
mastery  of  such  incidents  as  raids  and  chases,  and  in  the  part 
of  the  story  that  is  on  the  sea  his  imagination  is  a  sufficient 
substitute  for  the  experience  he  lacked.  It  was  probably  to 
his  advantage  that  the  period  in  which  the  story  is  placed  is 
earlier  than  his  minute  knowledge  reached,  for  the  tale  is 
freer  of  bald  historical  passages  than  many  of  his  romances. 
The  flutter  of  approval  which  the  novel  stirred  among  his 
friends  and  perhaps  among  a  more  public  audience  did  not 
presage  any  immortality  for  it,  but  the  praise  must  have  been 
grateful  to  Simms,  and  therefore  it  is  pleasant  to  remember. 

Plow  little  the  South  in  general  appreciated  his  services  was 
painfully  illustrated  by  the  omission  of  his  name  from  the 
list  of  editors  invited  in  1856  to  prepare  a  "series  of  books 
in  every  department  of  study,  from  the  earliest  primer  to 
the  highest  grade  of  literature  and  science"  —  the  series  to  be 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  171 

for  the  general  improvement  of  the  Southern  youth  through 
books  not  tainted  with  Northern  notions  of  civilization  and 
freedom.  The  natural  protest  against  this  ignoring  of  the 
South's  only  important  man  of  letters  came  from  a  New  York 
journal,  and  Simms'  unappreciative  state  was  roused  to  take 
notice  of  his  existence  by  appointing  him  to  educational 
boards  and  conventions;  but  Simms  was  not  deceived,  and 
continued  to  grieve  over  his  rejection  by  his  own  people. 

But  personal  regrets  and  sorrows,  lack  of  appreciation,  or 
the  loss  of  his  Charleston  house  by  fire,  in  1860,  were  not  al 
lowed  to  overshadow  Simms'  great  concern  in  the  coming 
Presidential  election.  He  hoped  for  a  break  between  the 
North  and  South,  though  if  possible  not  a  bloody  one,  and  the 
election  of  Lincoln  was  to  him  a  signal  for  the  new  Confed 
eracy  which  should  be  founded  upon  slavery.  However  other 
Southerners  might  prefer  to  phrase  the  issue,  Simms  still 
frankly  advocated  slavery.  When  it  was  clearly  a  matter  of 
fighting  for  his  principles,  his  main  regret  was  that  he  him 
self,  on  account  of  age  and  ill-health,  could  not  go  to  the  front. 
But  he  could  write  voluminous/  letters  to  his  friends  suggest 
ing  defenses  for  Charleston  harbor  with  an  amateur's  assur 
ance, — with  a  soundness  of  judgment,  too,  that'was  later  dem 
onstrated  in  the  practice  of  his  theories;  he  could  also  have 
his  say,  time  and  again,  on  the  main  theme  of  slavery.  One 
who  reads  his  life  pauses  often  at  this  period  of  it — if  one  is  a 
Northerner — to  wonder  at  his  frankness,  and  to  compare 
much  of  his  reasoning  with  Lincoln's  in  spite  of  the  difference 
in  their  conclusions.  We  almost  hear  the  echoes  of  the  Cooper 
Institute  speech,  strangely  transformed,  in  such  words  as 
these, — "Either  negro  slavery  is  a  beneficent,  merciful,  God- 
chartered  institution,  or  it  is  not.  If  beneficent,  why  limit  it  ? 
Is  it  better  for  the  negro  to  be  a  barbarian  and  savage  in  his 
own  country,  than  to  work  out  his  deliverance  in  this?  If 
better,  why  be  at  the  pains  to  cast  censure  on  the  morals  of 


172  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  institution?"  Be  it  said  for  the  credit  of  Simms'  logic  in 
this  passage  that  he  takes  for  granted  the  beneficence  of 
slavery  because  he  is  writing  to  another  Southerner. 

In  1861  two  more  of  his  children  died  of  fever,  and  a  year 
later  Woodlands  was  burned  down.  The  cause  of  the  fire  was 
not  discovered,  nor  could  it  have  made  much  difference; 
everything  was  lost  except  a  new  wing  of  the  building,  into 
which  most  of  his  library  was  carried  and  saved.  His  manu 
scripts  had  been  packed  a  few  days  before,  in  readiness  for 
flight  from  the  Yankees;  their  preservation  was  his  brightest 
comfort.  He  wrote  to  a  friend,  with  a  flash  of  his  old  courage, 
that  he  did  not  despair  nor  despond,  but  added  that  it  took  all 
his  strength  to  endure  such  repeated  strokes  of  fortune. 

The  desperate  sorrow  of  these  years  is  written  plainest  in 
those  letters  in  which  he  cherishes  his  hopes  in  the  face  of  un- 
disguisable  ruin.  How  pathetic  is  his  faith!  "It  cannot  be 
that  God  will  deliver  us  into  the  hands  of  these  atrocious 
heathens.  As  between  us  and  the  Deity,  there  is  no  doubt  a 
sad  reckoning  to  make;  but  as  between  us  and  these  accursed 
Yankees,  no  reproach  lies  at  our  doors,  unless  that  single  one 
of  having  too  long  slept  within  the  coils  of  the  serpent.  I 
have  faith  in  God,  my  friend.  He  may  punish  us,  and  we 
must  suffer,  for  this  is  the  meed  of  our  desert;  but  he  will  not 
let  us  sink.  I  have  faith  in  his  promise,  in  his  mercy,  and  I 
know  that  after  this  tribulation,  our  peace  shall  return  once 
more,  our  prosperity,  our  friends;  and  the  'song  of  the  turtle 
shall  be  heard  in  the  land.'  " 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on  the  long  series  of  disasters 
that  fell  on  Simms  during  the  war.  His  wife  died  on  Septem 
ber  10,  1863;  after  that  sorrow  he  felt  that  no  suffering  in 
comparison  could  seem  great.  He  was  in  Columbia  during 
the  sack  of  the  city  by  Sherman's  troops,  but  was  protected  by 
a  young  officer  who  had  the  bright  good  fortune  to  know  and 
appreciate  his  stories.  But  the  young  officer's  desire  to  do 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  173 

honor  to  literature  in  Simms'  person  could  not  save  the  rem 
nant  of  Woodlands  nor  the  library  it  contained;  after  an  ex 
amination  by  the  Northern  soldiers,  the  place  was  left  to  the 
mercy  of  stragglers  or  incendiaries  or  negroes, — who  ever  did 
it,  the  place  was  burned  to  the  ground.  When  a  friend  offered 
his  condolence,  Simms  exclaimed,  "Talk  not  to  me  about  my 
losses,  when  the  State  is  lost." 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  speak  at  length  of  the  years  immedi 
ately  following  the  war — years  almost  as  tragic  for  the  South 
erner  as  the  war  itself.  Simms  bore  the  change  with  the  ut 
most  courage.  His  chief  support  financially  he  earned  by  his 
connection  with  newspapers,  editing  the  Daily  South  Caro 
linian  with  Timrod,  and  writing  for  other  journals.  Wood 
lands  was  practically  worthless  as  a  source  of  income,  for  the 
freed  negroes  would  not  work,  and  Gilmore  Simms,  the  eldest 
son,  found  he  could  get  nothing  out  of  the  place.  Economic 
conditions  in  Charleston  were  so  wretched  that  all  who  could 
go  elsewhere  did  so;  Simms  himself  thought  of  coming  North, 
if  for  no  other  reason,  to  escape  the  horde  of  unfortunates  who 
tried  to  earn  money  by  writing  and  appealed  to  him  to  place 
their  work.  He  did  actually  go  North  for  a  few  months,  but 
the  trip  was  largely  a  business  visit  to  his  publishers;  he  was 
not  the  man  to  be  content  at  such  a  moment  away  from  his 
people.  On  his  return  he  began  a  serial  story,  Joscelyn,  for  a 
magazine,  and  prepared  for  the  press  a  volume  of  war  poems 
by  various  authors, — a  collection  that  on  the  whole  did  more 
credit  to  his  patriotic  impulses  than  to  his  critical  faculty. 

The  younger  writers  in  his  club  still  looked  up  to  him  for<xKu 
guidance,  and  he  continued  to  exercise  his  unselfish  faculty  of 
cheering  and  inspiring  other  men.  He  was  sorely  needed ;  per 
haps  if  we  could  judge  men's  lives  correctly  we  should  find 
that  his  noblest  achievement  was  in  the  leadership  of  those 
years.  Timrod  was  practically  starving;  Hayne  was  as  poor, 
if  not  as  helpless.  How  miserable  his  own  situation  was 


174  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Simms  does  not  let  us  see,  though  we  can  guess  from  the  fact 
that  in  the  house  where  he  stayed  there  were  practically  three 
families,  sixteen  persons  in  all,  and  their  total  income  was 
thirty  dollars  a  week.  He  could  write  bravely,  however,  even 
of  such  conditions:  " Fortunately  my  daughters  have  all  been 
taught  to  do  their  own  work,  fit  their  own  dresses,  and  they  go 
to  work  cheerfully,  and  sing  merrily  while  they  toil;  and  their 
elasticity  helps  to  encourage  and  strengthen  me  in  my  labor. 
The  picture  of  Irving,  etc.,  will  help  to  cover  the  bomb-shell 
holes  still  in  our  walls.  The  room  in  which  I  sleep  is  still  ex 
coriated  with  those  missiles."  From  this  room,  which  he 
shared  with  two  sons,  he  managed  to  collect  from  Northern 
and  masonic  friends  money  for  the  relief  of  destitute  families, 
and  between  his  literary  labors  he  distributed  these  funds,  all 
too  little,  among  the  Charleston  poor. 

In  1867  he  and  his  daughter  Mary  paid  a  visit  to  New  York, 
and  their  Northern  friends,  learning  of  their  presence,  enter 
tained  them  royally.  His  reputation  in  that  part  of  the  coun 
try  had  grown  even  outside  of  the  large  circle  of  his  friends; 
his  entertainment  was  in  fact  so  incessantly  hospitable  that  he 
fell  ill.  His  return  to  the  South  in  September  was  made  sad 
by  the  death  of  Timrod,  whose  illness  had  added  to  Simms' 
burdens  of  sympathy.  He  took  the  remaining  copies  of 
Timrod's  poems  off  the  hands  of  the  Northern  publishers  and 
sold  them  in  the  South  for  the  benefit  of  Timrod's  family. 

In  the  next  year  Simms  started  to  build  a  small  frame  house 
on  the  site  of  Woodlands,  for  he  had  definitely  given  up  the 
thought  of  living  in  any  other  section  of  the  country.  Modest 
as  his  plans  were,  the  building  proved  costly  and  trouble 
some,  so  much  so  that  he  was  in  desperate  straits  by  the  time 
it  was  finished.  He  paid  a  flying  visit  to  the  North  to  make 
contracts  for  stories,  and  he  says  he  was  writing  at  the  time 
two  romances  at  once.  His  historical  collection,  material 
bearing  upon  the  history  of  South  Carolina,  he  had  been 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  175 

forced  to  sell;  now  he  sent  to  a  Northern  friend  all  the  auto 
graphs  in  his  possession  which  he  thought  worth  saving.  The 
Southern  journals  for  which  he  wrote  failed  to  pay  him.  At 
the  end  of  the  year  he  was  living  at  Woodlands  again  in  four 
rooms — all  he  could  afford  to  build. 

Simms  practically  ended  his  life  by  overwork.  For  nine 
months  he  worked  at  his  desk  without  walking  a  mile  a  week ; 
by  this  sacrifice  of  all  wholesome  exercise  he  managed  to  com 
plete  two  romances,  but  broke  down  before  he  could  finish 
the  third.  The  quality  of  these  last  stories  is  what  might  be 
expected  from  the  circumstances  of  their  creation.  Simms 
was  no  longer  writing  for  fame  nor  for  art,  but  for  bread.  He 
was  too  old  to  recover  from  such  a  debauch  of  toil.  By 
June,  1870,  he  and  his  friends  realized  his  alarming  condition, 
but  the  end  was  sooner  perhaps  than  any  expected.  His  mag 
nificent  physique  was  completely  broken  down,  and  he  died 
at  Charleston  on  June  n. 

VIII 

One  who  makes  the  acquaintance  of  the  writings  or  the  life 
of  Simms  is  easily  persuaded  of  the  verdict  long  ago  pro 
nounced  upon  him,  that  he  was  far  nobler  than  his  books. 
Even  with  such  an  opinion  one  can  find  room  to  call  his  books 
noble  too;  their  faults  were  the  result  of  the  time  and  place  in 
which  they  were  written,  but  their  excellencies  make  them  kin 
to  all  high  romance.  Like  Cooper,  Simms  is  remembered 
chiefly  for  a  series  of  books — the  Revolutionary  romances — 
and  one  or  two  other  masterpieces  standing  alone.  In  the 
border  strife  of  Guy  Rivers  he  discovered  his  great  knack  of 
portraying  the  outlaw  in  the  South  and  Southwest;  in  the  Rev 
olutionary  romances  he  combined  this  outlaw  interest  with 
historical  portraiture,  thus  linking  the  two  strains  of  his  gen 
ius.  As  his  career  advanced  he  became  more  realistic,  not 
always  to  the  advantage  of  his  art.  The  Yemassee,  coming 


1 76  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

early,  was  his  purest  romance  and  the  best  expression  of  the 
poetry  in  him.  Though  it  does  not  belong  to  his  great  cycle 
of  stories,  it  is  near  them  all  by  virtue  of  that  love  of  his  state 
out  of  which  sprang  everything  worthy  that  Simms  wrote. 

If  one  considers  the  Revolutionary  tales,  from  The  Partisan 
to  Woodcraft,  taking  the  order  in  which  they  should  be  read, 
one  is  aware  of  Simms'  two  chief  faults.  Though  a  prolific 
writer,  he  is  not  creative  in  the  highest  sense;  by  comparison 
Cooper's  range  seems  enormous.  From  book  to  book, 
crowded  with  incident  though  they  are,  Simms  repeats  his 
situations  and  characters,  working  almost  by  a  formula.  The 
outlaws  must  be  hanged,  the  young  officers  must  fall  in  love 
with  the  daughters  of  the  enemy,  the  heroine  must  be  held  in 
duress  by  the  cruel  rival,  or  must  bestow  her  hand  as  the 
price  of  her  father's  life.  These  melodramatic  situations 
Simms  can  vary  with  astounding  power;  if  one  were  to  read 
any  single  romance,  the  impression  of  forceful  genius  would  be 
absolute,  but  with  each  additional  volume  of  the  series  the 
impression  lessens. 

The  second  weakness  in  almost  all  of  Simms'  work  is  one 
of  art,  a  fault  that  could  have  been  remedied  by  better 
methods  of  work.  Few  of  his  stories  have  unity  of  tone,  or 
"  blend."  They  seem  to  have  been  written  in  unrelated 
moods.  No  one  atmosphere  envelopes  them.  In  this  respect 
the  contrast  with  Cooper's  best  work  is  striking.  It  might  be 
said  that  the  cause  of  this  fault  was  poverty  of  imagination; 
but  it  is  more  reasonable  to  think  that  if  Simms  had  written 
with  fewer  distractions  and  had  revised  his  work,  he  could 
have  attained  that  unity  of  effect  that  art  demands.  In  some 
of  his  shorter  works,  such  as  The  Maroon,  he  did  succeed  in 
giving  to  the  poetic  story  absolute  keeping,  and  if  he  could  do 
it  in  a  short  story  he  might  have  done  it  in  a  long  one. 

But  matters  of  art  are  somewhat  beside  the  point  in  his 
work.  He  was  a  story-teller,  and  when  all  is  said,  his  best 


WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS  177 

stories  were  well  worth  telling  and  are  still  worth  reading. 
We  should  count  him  precious  in  our  literature  if  we  did  not 
have  Cooper,  for  they  two  alone  tell  us  on  the  grand  scale  a 
story  for  its  own  sake.  Both  came  of  romancing  blood.  The 
myth-making  faculty  that  slept  in  Cooper's  Northland  in 
heritance  was  matched  by  the  Celtic  fire  of  legend  and  loyalty 
in  Simms.  Though  he  was  typical  of  the  South, — and  of  the 
North  too  in  his  historical  conscience, — he  was  Celtic  in  his 
love  of  purely  unmoral  incident.  Cooper  makes  the  successes 
of  his  scouts  a  matter  of  skill  and  character;  Simms  in  his 
most  stirring  moments  makes  them  matters  of  happy  circum 
stances,  irresistible  as  Cuchullain's  luck. 

Yet  in  one  literary  way  Simms  will  always  be  more  than 
anything  else  a  type  of  the  South.  From  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  his  work  he  dwelt  lovingly  upon  his  country's  past, 
with  a  sad  sense  of  faded  glory.  The  young  Southerner  now 
thinks  of  the  days  before  the  war  as  the  happy  prime  of  his 
state,  and  is  melancholy  over  her  lost  battle-fields,  but  in  that 
very  prime  Simms  was  thinking  as  sadly  of  the  bright  days  of 
Revolutionary  honor.  Perhaps  there  was  something  Celtic, 
too,  in  this  habitual  retrospect.  But  it  is  probably  fair  to  say 
that  the  Southern  social  system,  doomed  from  the  beginning, 
preyed  upon  the  imagination  of  this  man,  and  of  many  others, 
with  a  subtle  consciousness  of  retrogression.  Cooper  had 
showed  America  the  road  to  the  frontier  of  its  dreams;  prog 
ress  was  his  great  theme.  Simms  looked  backward  like  the 
immortal  Spanish  Don, — almost  as  lovable  and  almost  as 
forlorn. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 


HAWTHORNE  and  Poe  are  the  artists  of  American  literature. 
Poe's  claims  to  the  leading  place  can  be  made  strong  by  in 
cluding  all  his  varied  achievements,  in  prose  and  verse.  But 
as  a  novelist  Hawthorne  has  no  rival  in  his  own  country  for 
literary  skill, — for  sustained  excellence  on  a  large  scale,  for 
the  management  of  plot,  and  for  the  magic  of  language  that 
denotes  the  master  of  style.  And  the  rivalry  with  Poe  ceases 
entirely  when  we  leave  these  more  external  matters  and  turn 
to  the  content  of  Hawthorne's  work;  for  his  genius  expressed 
so  completely  a  remarkable  phase  of  human  experience,  that 
his  name  stands  more  for  his  subject  than  for  his  treatment  of 
it.  He  is  the  novelist,  as  Emerson  is  the  poet,  of  New  Eng 
land.  The  Puritan  character  which  Cooper  failed  to  sympa 
thize  with,  is  the  very  subject  of  Hawthorne's  work;  so  that  if 
he  has  limitations  in  comparison  with  the  universal  story 
tellers,  like  Scott  or  Balzac,  the  deficiency  is  not  so  much  in 
the  small  amount  of  his  product  as  in  his  inability  to  see  life 
except  as  a  Puritan  world,  from  a  Puritan  standpoint;  and 
the  limitation  is  more  clearly  defined  by  his  temperamental 
preoccupation  with  one  aspect  of  the  Puritan  nature. 

New  England's  contribution  to  the  American  novel  is  rep 
resented  chiefly  in  Hawthorne  and  Mrs.  Stowe.  The  two 
writers  are  complementary,  exhibiting  to  an  almost  exagger 
ated  degree  the  paradox  of  Puritanism.  The  devotion  to  a 
cause  in  action,  the  yearning  to  achieve  the  kingdom  of  God 
in  a  practical  way  on  earth,  and  the  great  efficiency  of  the  at- 

179 


l8o  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

tempt, — these  Puritan  traits  make  up  the  genius  of  the  author 
of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  But  the  Puritan  had  more  subtle 
experiences  than  these,  especially  as  he  drew  away  from  his 
definite  religion.  When  he  desired  to  build  the  kingdom  of 
God,  he  looked  for  the  pattern  of  it,  not  in  history  nor  in  the 
fortunes  of  those  about  him,  but  in  his  own  heart.  The 
prime  requisite  of  his  way  of  life  was  that  he  should  be  free  to 
know  himself, — to  learn  his  dreams  as  a  first  step  toward 
bringing  them  forth;  therefore  he  was  a  solitary,  preoccupied 
figure,  even  among  others  of  his  kind,  and  the  outer  world 
had  most  value  to  him  as  a  molding  influence  upon  his  vis 
ion.  Such  a  temperament  as  is  here  indicated  was  perilous 
to  art,  finding  little  joy  in  the  natural  senses,  and  holding 
but  weakly  to  the  reality  of  matter-of-fact  things.  From  its 
peril  Spenser  and  Milton  were  saved  by  the  enormous  flood  of 
Renaissance  tradition  and  by  the  imperative  call  to  practical 
duties,  which  redeemed  in  both  the  thinness  of  their  ascetic 
natures.  But  to  many  a  Puritan  the  spectacle  of  life  became 
less  real  than  his  thoughts,  since  his  dream  of  the  world  was 
more  fixed  than  the  world  itself;  he  approached  all  experience 
with  a  mental  reservation,  with  the  scientist's  experimental 
mood,  as  though  the  moment  might  prove  a  touchstone  of 
truth  and  falsehood,  to  lighten  or  leave  darkened  his  soul. 
This  subjective  habit  of  Puritanism,  almost  to  the  exclusion  of 
other  aspects,  is  the  secret  of  Hawthorne's  character  and 
writings. 

The  solitude  of  his  life  is  sometimes  attributed  to  the  cus 
tom  of  his  boyhood,  when  he  dwelt  in  extreme  seclusion  with 
his  lonely  family.  But  his  mother's  preference  for  a  hermit 
way  of  living  was  itself  the  expression  of  the  brooding,  phi 
losophizing  mind  the  son  inherited.  To  her  temperament  as 
to  his,  it  was  desirable  to  be  alone. 

That  each  should  in  his  house  abide, 
Therefore  was  the  world  so  wide, 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  181 

sings  Emerson;  and  when  Hawthorne  in  his  maturity  visited 
Shakspere's  birthplace,  he  wondered  how  the  poet's  genius 
could  unfold  in  a  house  that  permitted  so  little  solitude.  The 
remark  illustrates  both  his  difficulty  in  comprehending  the 
nature  of  Shakspere's  genius,  and  the  peculiar  quality  of  his 
own.  His  life  seems  one  long  attempt  to  get  away  by  himself, 
where  the  world  could  not  take  hold  on  him.  Had  he  been  a 
complete  Puritan,  some  zeal  for  realizing  his  dream  would 
have  gone  with  the  dream  itself.  But  all  action  was  foreign 
to  his  temper;  no  reform,  no  battle,  not  even  the  pleasant 
duties  of  daily  life,  ever  wholly  engaged  his  interest.  And  in 
his  stories  he  portrayed  men  from  the  point  of  view  his  own 
habit  involved, — as  undergoing  life  and  watching  the  effect, 
rather  than  living  it  and  causing  it  to  be.  His  interest  is  never 
in  action,  in  the  sense  that  applies  to  Scott  or  Cooper;  in  few 
of  his  books  is  the  active  side  of  Puritanism  represented,  and 
in  fewer  still  is  there  record  of  any  achievement,  of  the  kind 
that  ordinarily  makes  life  and  books  satisfactory;  it  is  little  to 
him  whether  his  characters,  judged  by  tangible  results,  suc 
ceed  or  fail.  The  actions  that  condition  the  story  frequently 
occur  before  it  begins,  and  are  left  untold.  He  has  eyes  only 
for  the  effect  of  life  upon  character  as  it  follows  from  the  char 
acter's  own  will,  or  from  the  actions  of  others. 

Evidently  so  great  a  genius  as  Hawthorne's,  occupied  with 
a  unique  expression  of  humanity,  should  not  be  quarreled 
with  if  what  he  says  and  the  way  he  says  it  are  quite  unlike 
anything  else  found  in  novels.  To  all  readers — and  they  are 
the  majority — who  prefer  the  picture  of  life  that  is  vital  and 
reproduces  without  apparent  reflection  the  flood  of  common 
or  romantic  incident,  Hawthorne  makes  to  some  extent  an 
ineffectual  appeal;  and  if  to  think  be  contrary  to  man's  na 
ture  as  it  is  to  his  habit,  they  are  right  who  would  place  his 
genius  in  an  inferior  rank.  But  it  is  obviously  unjust  to  pass 
sentence  upon  him,  as  recent  and  able  criticism  has  done,  be- 


182  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

cause  his  stories  present  no  strong  sense  of  outward  reality, 
and  his  very  characters  often  seem  to  themselves  as  it  were 
creatures  of  a  trance.  To  condemn  his  work  on  such  grounds 
is  simply  to  complain  that  instead  of  being  a  realist,  he  is  a 
psychologist  and  a  poet.  The  Puritan  vision  in  him  is  his 
only  reality,  and  by  comparison  the  outside  world  seems  to 
him  a  thing  of  phantom  and  allegory.  He  is  the  child  of  the 
author  of  the  Faerie  Queene. 

II 

William  Hawthorne,  or  Hathorne,  the  novelist's  ancestor 
who  transplanted  a  branch  of  the  family  line  from  Wiltshire  to 
New  England,  seems  not  to  have  been  an  ineffectual  Puritan. 
Whatever  visionary  traits  he  may  have  had  are  swallowed  up 
by  time,  while  the  record  of  his  energy  is  still  distinct.  He 
came  over  with  Winthrop  to  Boston,  in  1630,  and  settling 
in  Dorchester,  promptly  became  a  leader  among  his  fellows, — 
in  the  legislature,  where  he  was  Speaker  for  seven  or  eight 
years;  in  the  practical  improvement  of  the  settlement,  clear 
ing  the  forests  and  planting  the  fields;  in  warfare  against  the 
Indians  and  in  explorations,  even  until  he  was  seventy  years 
old;  in  rigid  enforcement  of  the  laws,  condemning  murderers 
or  Quakers  to  the  scaffold  or  the  whipping-post;  in  business 
ventures,  in  which  he  succeeded;  and  finally  in  preaching, 
which  he  seems  to  have  done  with  vigor  and  effect.  That  he 
had  the  finer  qualities  of  the  spirit  is  suggested  by  a  copy  of 
Sidney's  Arcadia,  in  his  possession,  and  his  ability  to  write 
with  the  dignity  of  his  age  and  with  much  personal  adroitness 
is  proved  by  his  letter  to  Secretary  Morrice,  in  1666,  declining 
to  obey  the  order  of  Charles  II  summoning  Governor  Belling- 
ham  and  himself  to  England.  The  old  Puritan  puts  the  case 
of  the  Colonies  with  sound  reasoning  and  much  picturesque- 
ness;  the  flame  of  liberty  burning  in  him  is  concealed  more  or 
less  by  wise  policy,  but  it  breaks  out  finely  in  a  prophetic  hint 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  183 

as  to  where  the  Colonies  may  arrive  if  they  fail  of  their  rights : 
"What  extremity  may  force  them  to,  that  God  only  knows, 
who  is  wonderful  in  counsel  and  mighty  in  working,  whose 
thoughts  are  not  as  man's,  and  his  counsel  only  shall  stand." 

In  the  next  generation  John  Hawthorne  became  the  chief 
person  of  the  family,  a  narrower  Puritan  than  his  father,  but 
only  less  able.  As  Judge  he  presided  at  several  witchcraft 
trials,  and  a  curse  was  laid  on  him  and  his  blood  by  one  he 
condemned  to  die.  During  his  life  the  family  lost  the  title- 
deed  to  the  land  in  Maine  where  afterwards  the  town  of  Ray 
mond  grew  up,  and  the  papers  were  recovered  only  when  the 
claim  had  become  valueless.  Both  incidents  the  novelist  used 
in  The  House  0}  the  Seven  Gables.  The  other  Hawthornes  of 
that  generation  took  to  the  sea,  and  like  their  father  were  ac 
tive,  efficient  men. 

Of  a  different  temper  was  Joseph  Hawthorne,  the  next  of 
the  line.  He  was  a  quiet-loving  person  with  a  bent  toward 
agriculture;  the  family  genius  skipped  a  generation  and  left 
him  undisturbed.  His  son  Daniel,  however,  had  both  am 
bition  and  capacity,  and  was  a  lover  of  the  sea.  In  the  Revo 
lution  he  commanded  a  privateer,  Fair  America,  whose  ad 
ventures  were  chronicled  in  an  old  ballad,  and  he  got  himself 
the  popular  title  of  "  Bold  Daniel."  He  wooed  the  Muse  too, 
in  a  practical  short-hand  sort  of  way;  a  girl  named  Mary 
Rondel  won  his  heart,  and  he  used  to  underline  amatory  por 
tions  of  the  A  rcadia  in  his  great-grandfather's  precious  copy, 
wherein  Mary  evidently  read  and  found  love-confessions 
ready-made.  But  the  courtship  proved  a  failure,  the  lovers 
apparently  quarreled,  and  Mary  died.  Daniel  laid  aside  the 
Arcadia  and  won  the  hand  of  Rachel  Phelps  by  more  direct 
methods.  His  son  Nathaniel,  born  in  1775,  was  a  sea-captain 
of  reserved,  melancholy  manner,  but  of  considerable  ability. 
He  married  Elizabeth  Clarke  Manning,  a  woman  of  beauty 
and  character,  whose  ancestry  was  as  honorable  and  sturdy 


1 84  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

as  his  own.  When  he  died  in  1 808  he  left  her  with  two  daugh 
ters,  Elizabeth  and  Louise,  and  a  son,  Nathaniel,  the  future 
novelist. 

Heredity  and  family  history  seems  to  count  even  more 
with  Hawthorne  than  with  most  writers.  A  nature  as  sen 
sitive  as  his  to  all  noble  influences  would  find  much  fasci 
nation  in  the  past,  and  he  allowed  it  to  affect  him  in  other 
ways  than  through  the  inheritance  of  blood  and  temperament. 
The  tradition  of  strong  characters  made  gentler  and  perhaps 
weaker  by  time,  such  as  the  memory  of  his  house  handed 
down,  from  the  immigrant  ancestor  to  his  thoughtful  father 
and  secluded  mother,  came  to  be  almost  his  habitual  concep 
tion  of  life.  In  the  shorter  stories  as  well  as  in  The  House  of 
the  Seven  Gables  and  The  Marble  Faun,  the  plot  is  often 
rooted  in  just  such  a  transformation  of  a  family,  and  in  the 
other  tales,  with  hardly  an  exception,  the  effect  of  time  and 
its  changes  upon  character  is  a  constant  theme,  so  that  the 
attention  is  fixed  on  the  past.  To  reproduce  early  environ 
ment  or  local  or  family  traditions  is  of  course  nothing  unusual 
among  writers;  Cooper  used  his  boyhood  and  his  home  for 
his  best  material,  and  Scott  far  more  conspicuously  immortal 
ized  a  traditional  world.  But  Hawthorne's  uniqueness  is 
best  felt  by  contrast  with  these  very  novelists.  They  repro 
duce  the  past  as  it  occurred,  with  the  panorama  of  events  and 
circumstances.  Hawthorne  reproduces  its  effects  upon  men's 
character,  with  the  minimum  attention  to  the  outward  fact. 
It  is  impossible  for  him  to  write  any  story  whose  interest  is 
entirely  in  the  present;  the  story  of  the  effect  of  life,  his  typi 
cal  theme,  logically  involves  an  interest  in  the  previous  cause, 
so  that  the  mind  usually  takes  possession  of  his  writings  more 
by  exploring  the  past  he  suggests,  than  by  living  in  the  phan 
tom  present  he  tries  to  describe. 

The  home  in  which  Hawthorne  grew  up  was  peculiarly 
calculated  to  develop  the  poet  and  dreamer  in  him.  From  his 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  185 

birth,  July  4,  1804,  until  his  father's  death  four  years  later, 
the  old  Salem  house  probably  differed  little  from  many  an 
other  sea  captain's  dwelling,  but  from  the  beginning  of  her 
widowhood  his  mother  cherished  her  sorrow  in  an  extraordin 
ary  seclusion,  eating  her  meals  apart  from  the  children,  and 
estranging  them  from  natural  social  interests.  The  older 
sister,  Elizabeth,  shared  her  mother's  temperament,  as  did 
Hawthorne  himself,  and  their  way  of  life  simply  developed 
abnormally  their  meditative  bent.  The  other  sister,  Louise, 
younger  than  the  novelist,  had  a  more  usual  zest  in  the  world 
about  her,  and  with  opportunity  would  have  taken  the  aver 
age  young  girl's  part  in  society.  Only  the  strong  Puritan 
strain  in  all  three  children  could  have  made  so  gloomy  a 
childhood  lovable.  They  lived  in  their  own  thoughts,  but 
were  affectionate,  and  their  reverence  for  their  remarkable 
mother  was  very  great.  It  is  easy,  however,  to  imagine  that 
Hawthorne's  home  life  was  more  an  experience  of  ideas  than 
of  the  heart;  to  his  mother  in  her  seclusion  he  could  hardly  be 
bound  by  intimate  daily  ties,  and  his  attitude  toward  her  and 
toward  this  aspect  of  his  boyhood  seems  best  indicated  by  his 
self -analytical  record  of  her  death-bed,  years  later: — 

"  About  five  o'clock  I  went  to  my  mother's  chamber,  and 
was  shocked  to  see  such  an  alteration  since  my  last  visit.  I 
love  my  mother;  but  there  has  been,  ever  since  boyhood,  a 
sort  of  coldness  of  intercourse  between  us,  such  as  is  apt  to 
come  between  persons  of  strong  feelings  if  they  are  not  man 
aged  rightly.  I  did  not  expect  to  be  much  moved  at  the 
time, — that  is  to  say,  not  to  feel  any  overpowering  emotion 
struggling  just  then, — though  I  knew  I  should  deeply  remem 
ber  and  regret  her.  Mrs.  Dike  was  in  the  chamber;  Louisa 
pointed  to  a  chair  near  the  bed,  but  I  was  moved  to  kneel 
down  close  by  my  mother,  and  take  her  hand.  She  knew  me, 
but  could  only  murmur  a  few  indistinct  words;  among  which 
I  understood  an  injunction  to  take  care  of  my  sisters.  Mrs. 
Dike  left  the  chamber,  and  then  I  found  the  tears  slowly 
gathering  in  my  eyes.  I  tried  to  keep  them  down,  but  it 


1 86  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

would  not  be;  I  kept  filling  up,  till,  for  a  few  moments,  I 
shook  with  sobs.  For  a  long  time  I  knelt  there,  holding  her 
hand;  and  surely  it  is  the  darkest  hour  I  ever  lived.  After 
wards  I  stood  by  the  open  window  and  looked  through  the 
crevice  of  the  curtain.  The  shouts,  laughter,  and  cries  of  the 
two  children  had  come  up  into  the  chamber  from  the  open 
air,  making  a  strange  contrast  with  the  death-bed  scene.  And 
now,  through  the  crevice  of  the  curtain,  I  saw  my  little  Una 
of  the  golden  locks,  looking  very  beautiful,  and  so  full  of 
spirits  and  life  that  she  was  life  itself.  And  then  I  looked  at 
my  poor  dying  mother,  and  seemed  to  see  the  whole  of  human 
existence  at  once,  standing  in  the  dusky  midst  of  it." 

In  his  first  years  Hawthorne  was  an  active  boy,  but  from  his 
tenth  year  until  he  was  twelve,  an  accident  in  an  outdoor 
game  lamed  him,  and  he  was  thrown  upon  mental  resources 
for  occupation  and  amusement.  His  school-teacher,  Dr. 
Joseph  Worcester  of  dictionary  fame,  gave  Hawthorne  his 
lessons  at  home,  and  the  boy  found  himself  early  in  the  great 
poets,  especially  Shakspere,  Milton,  and  Spenser.  The  first 
book  he  ever  bought  was  The  Faerie  Queene.  Besides  these 
books  and  The  Pilgrim's  Progress,  he  read  history  and  fic 
tion;  so  that  literature  at  its  best  was  as  much  the  foundation 
of  his  art,  as  nature  was  the  inspiration  of  Cooper's. 

But  strangely  enough,  Hawthorne's  boyhood  was  com 
pleted  by  an  acquaintance  with  the  wild  forest  not  unlike 
Cooper's.  In  1818  his  mother  removed  for  a  year  to  Ray 
mond,  Maine,  where  her  brother  Robert,  who  interested  him 
self  in  his  nephew,  had  built  a  large  house  for  himself  and  an 
other  for  her.  In  the  wilderness  that  inclosed  the  settlement 
many  of  the  conditions  of  the  Otsego  colony  must  have  been 
repeated — the  solitude,  the  frontier  society,  the  waters  on 
which  it  was  situated,  Sebago  Lake.  Here  Hawthorne  spent 
what  he  considered  his  happiest  days,  leading  a  pleasant  ad 
venturous  life,  boy-fashion.  To  this  period  belongs  the  First 
Diary,  which  may  or  may  not  be  genuine.  If  it  is,  the  picture 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  187 

of  his  year  in  Raymond  shows  a  more  normal,  thought-free 
character  than  we  associate  with  him  later. 

In  1819  he  was  back  in  Salem  with  his  uncles,  Richard  and 
Robert  Manning,  his  mother  and  sisters  remaining  in  Ray 
mond.  The  next  two  years  were  devoted  to  preparation  for 
college,  with  much  literary  activity  besides.  He  wrote  verses 
and  prose,  and  issued  a  short-lived  paper,  The  Spectator, 
which  for  four  numbers  circulated  in  the  family.  His  reading 
in  general  literature  was  continued  and  broadened,  and  in  his 
letters  he  ventured  critical  opinions  on  what  he  had  read. 
Scott's  novels  were  his  favorities,  with  Caleb  Williams  next  in 
order.  Yet  in  the  very  letter  in  which  his  literary  enthusiasm 
is  outpoured,  he  shows  a  trace  of  that  irresolution  in  his  atti 
tude  toward  his  art  which  was  to  appear  often  in  his  later  life, 
and  which  went  with  his  contemplative  nature.  "I  have  al 
most  given  up  writing  poetry,"  he  says.  "No  man  can  be  a 
poet  and  a  bookkeeper  at  the  same  time."  It  was  not  the  last 
time  that  he  found  himself  ready  to  "give  up"  writing,  or  was 
discouraged  by  the  conflict  of  his  inward  vision  and  outward 
circumstance.  In  a  later  letter  to  his  mother  he  discussed  the 
choice  of  a  profession  in  a  mood  which  in  spite  of  some  play 
fulness  shows  his  temperamental  reluctance  to  commit  any 
ideal  to  practice:  "I  have  not  yet  concluded  what  profession 
I  shall  have.  The  being  a  minister  is  of  course  out  of  the 
question.  I  should  not  think  that  even  you  would  desire  me 
to  choose  so  dull  a  way  of  life.  Oh,  no,  mother,  I  was  not 
born  to  vegetate  forever  in  one  place,  and  to  live  and  die  as 
calm  and  as  tranquil  as  a  puddle  of  water.  As  to  lawyers, 
there  are  so  many  of  them  already  that  one-half  of  them  (upon 
a  moderate  calculation)  are  in  a  state  of  actual  starvation. 
A  physician,  then,  seems  to  be  'Hobson's  choice';  but  yet  I 
should  not  like  to  live  by  the  diseases  and  infirmities  of  my 
fellow-creatures.  And  it  would  weigh  very  heavily  on  my 
conscience,  in  the  course  of  my  practice,  if  I  should  chance  to 


1 88  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

send  any  unlucky  patient  'ad  infernum,'  which  being  inter 
preted  is,  'to  the  realms  below.'  Oh  that  I  was  rich  enough 
to  live  without  a  profession!  What  do  you  think  of  my  be 
coming  an  author,  and  relying  for  support  on  my  pen  ?  In 
deed,  I  think  the  illegibility  of  my  handwriting  is  very  author- 
like." 

In  1821  Hawthorne  entered  Bowdoin  College,  at  Bruns 
wick,  Maine,  in  the  class  with  Longfellow,  and  one  year  be 
low  Franklin  Pierce,  his  close  friend,  who  afterward  became 
President  of  the  United  States.  The  four  years  that  followed 
were  happy  and  not  wholly  unprofitable,  though  Hawthorne 
was  no  student,  and  his  comparative  poverty  kept  him  from 
much  social  activity.  His  expenses  were  paid  by  his  uncle 
Robert,  and  the  fact  that  he  was  to  that  degree  dependent 
weighed  somewhat  on  his  New  England  pride,  of  which  he 
always  had  a  good  share.  Though  quiet  and  reserved,  he 
made  friends  and  took  part  in  the  general  college  life — per 
haps  more  than  an  average  part  in  the  card-playing  and 
gambling  that  went  on.  At  least  he  was  singled  out  for  mild 
punishment  in  a  crusade  the  authorities  made  against  the 
college  card-players  in  the  Spring  of  1822,  as  a  frank  and  self- 
possessed  letter  to  his  mother  announced ;  and  his  companions 
were  among  the  more  convivial,  less  studious  fellows,  at  the 
other  end  of  the  class  from  the  scholarly  Longfellow.  Yet  at 
his  graduation  he  stood  eighteenth  in  the  class  of  thirty-eight, 
and  was  entitled  to  a  Commencement  part,  which  he  for 
feited,  however,  because  of  his  unwillingness  to  speak  in  pub 
lic.  Pierce  and  others  were  his  firm  friends  when  he  left,  and 
Horatio  Bridge  was  his  intimate  companion.  The  impres 
sion  he  made  on  the  college  was  of  self-respecting  goodf ellow- 
ship;  to  the  few  discerning  ones  he  seemed  to  promise  great 
things,  and  they  kept  their  faith  in  him.  Bridge  especially 
encouraged  him  by  his  confidence,  and  Hawthorne  later 
wrote  that  his  friend  was  more  responsible  than  any  one  else 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  189 

for  his  being  a  writer.  The  complete  acknowledgment  of 
his  indebtedness  is  in  the  dedicatory  letter  prefixed  to  The 
Snow  Image,  and  it  illustrates  Hawthorne's  college  days, 
besides  expressing  his  friendly  gratitude: 

"On  you,  if  on  no  other  person,  I  am  entitled  to  rely,  to 
sustain  the  position  of  my  Dedicatee.  If  anybody  is  respon 
sible  for  my  being  at  'this  day  an  author,  it  is  yourself.  I  know 
not  whence  your  faith  came;  but  while  we  were  lads  together 
at  a  country  college, — gathering  blueberries,  in  study-hours, 
under  those  tall  academic  pines;  or  watching  the  great  logs,  as 
they  tumbled  along  the  current  of  the  Androscoggin;  or  shoot 
ing  pigeons  and  gray  squirrels  in  the  woods;  or  bat-fowling  in 
the  summer  twilight;  or  catching  trouts  in  that  shadowy  little 
stream  which,  I  suppose,  is  still  wandering  riverward  through 
the  forest, — though  you  and  I  will  never  cast  a  line  in  it 
again, — two  idle  lads,  in  short  (as  we  need  not  fear  to  ac 
knowledge  now),  doing  a  hundred  things  that  the  Faculty 
never  heard  of,  or  else  it  had  been  the  worse  for  us, — still  it 
was  your  prognostic  of  your  friend's  destiny,  that  he  was  to 
be  a  writer  of  fiction. 

"And  a  fiction-monger,  in  due  season,  he  became.  But 
was  there  ever  such  a  weary  delay  in  obtaining  the  slightest 
recognition  from  the  public,  as  in  my  case  ?  I  sat  down  by  the 
wayside  of  life,  like  a  man  under  enchantment,  and  a  shrub 
bery  sprang  up  around  me,  and  the  bushes  grew  to  be  sap 
lings,  and  the  saplings  became  trees,  until  no  exit  appeared 
possible,  through  the  entangling  depths  of  my  obscurity.  And 
there,  perhaps,  I  should  be  sitting  at  this  moment,  with  the 
moss  on  the  imprisoning  tree  trunks,  and  the  yellow  leaves  of 
more  than  a  score  of  Autumns  piled  above  me,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  you.  For  it  was  through  your  intervention — and 
that,  moreover,  unknown  to  himself — that  your  early  friend 
was  brought  before  the  public,  somewhat  more  prominently 
than  theretofore,  in  the  first  volume  of  Twice  Told  Tales" 

III 

The  patient  solitude  that  Hawthorne  here  refers  to  figura 
tively,  was  spent  in  the  old  house  in  Salem  during  practically 


I  go  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  next  twelve  years.  His  mother  had  returned  thither  in 
1822,  somewhat  against  his  wish,  for  he  thought  the  seclusion 
of  Raymond  better  suited  to  her  comfort.  Now  at  the  close 
of  his  college  course  he  rejoined  the  little  family,  and  took  up 
with  them  a  life  of  curious  isolation.  His  mother's  habits  of 
solitary  mourning  had  not  changed,  and  as  his  sisters  grew 
up,  they  also  had  formed  separate  habits,  and  lived  each  in 
her  own  world.  When  Hawthorne  took  his  place  again  in 
the  household  it  was  with  the  determination  to  become  a 
writer;  the  necessary  meditation  of  his  art  reinforced  his 
temperamental  shyness  and  the  home  tradition,  and  it  is  no 
wonder  that  he  became  perhaps  the  greatest  recluse  of  the 
group.  The  family  rarely  met,  even  at  meals,  and  Haw 
thorne  seldom  went  out  of  his  room,  except  for  a  walk  in  the 
morning  or  evening.  The  mornings  he  spent  in  study,  the 
afternoons  in  writing,  the  evenings  in  reading.  Later  he 
seems  to  have  made  some  brief  journeys  in  Connecticut, 
Vermont,  New  York  and  New  Hampshire,  probably  through 
the  generosity  of  his  uncles,  but  the  twelve  years  he  spent  in 
the  old  Salem  house  remained  in  his  memory  as  a  single  un 
broken  solitude.  Not  twenty  people  in  Salem  knew  of  his 
existence,  he  thought,  nor  did  his  family  share  his  ambition 
beyond  the  necessary  faith  to  allow  him  to  attempt  a  living  by 
writing.  He  never  read  his  stories  and  sketches  to  them;  less 
than  any  other  author,  perhaps,  he  was  encouraged  by  the 
proverbial  audience  of  admiring  relatives.  If  he  gave  in  his 
later  writings  the  effect  of  low  vitality,  of  a  certain  lack  of 
ambition,  his  long  and  silent  devotion  to  his  craft  should  cor 
rect  that  impression,  for  the  years  in  the  lonely  house  are  a 
record  of  faithful  work  in  discouraging  conditions  that  the 
most  energetic  writer  might  be  proud  of. 

Nor  were  they,  on  the  whole,  unhappy  years;  they  were  too 
busy  for  that.  A  passage  in  the  preface  to  the  complete  edi 
tion  of  Twice  Told  Tales,  in  1851,  relates  the  discouragements 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  191 

of  his  devoted  apprenticeship  with  a  cheerfulness  probably 
not  assumed  with  the  good  fortune  of  delayed  success: 

"  Throughout  the  time  above  specified,  he  had  no  incitement 
to  literary  effort  in  a  reasonable  prospect  of  reputation  or 
profit,  nothing  but  the  pleasure  itself  of  composition — an  en 
joyment  not  at  all  amiss  in  its  way,  and  perhaps  essential  to 
the  merit  of  the  work  in  hand,  but  which,  in  the  long  run,  will 
hardly  keep  the  chill  out  of  a  writer's  heart,  or  the  numbness 
out  of  his  ringers.  To  this  total  lack  of  sympathy,  at  the  age 
when  his  mind  would  naturally  have  been  most  effervescent, 
the  public  owe  it  (and  it  is  certainly  an  effect  not  to  be  re 
gretted  on  either  part)  that  the  author  can  show  nothing  for 
the  thought  and  industry  of  that  portion  of  his  life,  save  the 
forty  sketches,  or  thereabouts,  included  in  these  volumes. 

"Much  more,  indeed,  he  wrote;  and  some  very  small  part 
of  it  might  yet  be  rummaged  out  (but  it  would  not  be  worth 
the  trouble)  among  the  dingy  pages  of  fifteen-or-twenty-year 
old  periodicals,  or  within  the  shabby  morocco  covers  of  faded 
souvenirs.  The  remainder  of  the  works  alluded  to  had  a  very 
brief  existence,  but,  on  the  score  of  brilliancy,  enjoyed  a  fate 
vastly  superior  to  that  of  their  brotherhood,  which  succeeded 
in  getting  through  the  press.  In  a  word,  the  Author  burned 
them  without  mercy  or  remorse,  and,  moreover,  without  any 
subsequent  regret,  and  had  more  than  one  occasion  to  marvel 
that  such  very  dull  stuff,  as  he  knew  his  condemned  manu 
scripts  to  be,  should  yet  have  possessed  inflammability  enough 
to  set  the  chimney  on  fire!" 

The  first  product  of  these  days  was  Fanshawe,  published 
in  1828  in  Boston.  Hawthorne  paid  the  cost  of  this  book,  one 
hundred  dollars,  and  as  it  proved  a  complete  failure,  he  was 
later  at  some  pains  to  destroy  all  the  copies  he  could  get  his 
hands  on,  making  his  sister  and  his  intimate  friends  surrender 
their  copies  for  another  chimney  blaze.  After  his  death,  how 
ever,  the  story  was  reprinted  from  one  volume  that  had  es 
caped  his  critical  rigor. 

Hawthorne's  judgment  in  suppressing  his  inferior  work  was 
always  excellent;  there  never  was,  perhaps,  a  better  self- 


192  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

critic.  The  stories  and  sketches  he  would  have  been  glad  to 
let  go  undelayed  to  oblivion  are  not  only  clearly  below  his 
quality,  but  sometimes  they  are  different  in  kind,  and  seem 
not  to  have  been  written  by  him  at  all.  In  Fanshawe  there  is 
little  to  suggest  his  typical  genius.  There  is  no  subtlety  in  the 
well-defined  characters,  there  is  no  brooding  or  meditating 
upon  life;  the  action  is  brisk,  and  the  incident  counts  for  more 
than  the  persons.  Hawthorne  apparently  was  trying  to  write 
in  the  Scott  vein, — that  is,  attempting  the  one  thing  he  could 
not  accomplish,  a  romantic  story  of  adventure.  With  no 
knowledge  of  the  stir  of  life  to  draw  on  for  realistic  incident, 
he  was  hopelessly  handicapped.  That  he  turned  to  the  col 
lege  world  he  had  recently  left,  and  used  it  for  the  setting  of 
his  story  as  the  only  society  in  his  experience,  shows  perhaps 
that  he  knew  the  need  of  facts  in  this  kind  of  novel,  but  the 
result  has  not  the  desirable  illusion  of  actuality.  The  only 
part  of  the  story  that  has  quality  occurs  before  the  action  be 
gins;  it  is  the  description  of  the  little  college,  of  the  kindly 
president  and  his  formidable  spouse, — a  quiet  picture  in 
which  Hawthorne's  magic  realism  is  at  least  promised,  and 
much  of  his  humor  also.  The  paragraph  summing  up  the 
student  body  is  still  on  the  whole  true  of  the  small  New  Eng 
land  college;  it  is  easy  to  recognize  the  country  boy,  in  his 
Freshman  rusticity,  and  in  the  increased  dignity  and  more 
precise  tailoring  of  Sophomore  year,  or  the  town-bred  youths, 
the  "  mod  els  of  fashion  to  their  rustic  companions,  over  whom 
they  asserted  a  superiority  in  external  accomplishments,  which 
the  fresh  though  unpolished  intellect  of  the  sons  of  the  forest 
denied  them  in  their  literary  competitions."  And  equally  true, 
though  more  striking  in  discernment,  considering  his  youth, 
and  marking  already  his  distrust  of  the  practical  application 
of  ideals,  is  his  description  of  the  few  young  descendants  of 
the  aborigines,  "to  whom  an  impracticable  philanthropy  was 
endeavoring  to  impart  the  benefits  of  civilization." 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  193 

The  character  of  Dr.  Welmoth,  the  college  President,  is  the 
only  attractive  one  in  the  story;  it  is  well  described,  but  loses 
dignity  as  soon  as  it  is  launched  upon  the  impossible  incidents 
of  the  plot.  Fanshawe,  the  hero,  wins  attention  by  the  de 
voted  solitude  of  his  life,  and  by  his  mental  isolation  even 
when  the  plot  compels  him  to  mingle  among  others.  When 
he  rejects  the  heroine's  love  and  returns  to  the  fatal  studies 
which  are  his  doom,  no  matter  how  unreal  the  tale  seems  it 
has  this  much  of  Hawthorne  in  it,  that  the  character  is  kept 
true  to  that  curious  isolation  which  was  so  much  the  fate  of 
himself  and  the  chief  persons  in  his  books. 

Though  Fanshawe  was  in  every  sense  a  failure,  it  was  a 
long  time  before  Hawthorne  produced  another  story  as  am 
bitious,  or  perhaps  as  promising.  Like  Cooper  and  Longfel 
low,  he  was  interested  in  native  themes,  and  projected  a  series 
to  be  called  Provincial  Tales,  but  the  material  for  these 
stories  was  either  discarded  or  worked  up  in  other  forms. 
Perhaps  the  anonymous  tale,  The  Young  Provincial,  an  ac 
count  of  adventures  in  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  which  ap 
peared  in  The  Token  of  1830,  is  one  of  this  series.  Much  of 
Hawthorne's  publishing  for  the  next  years  was  in  this  annual, 
edited  by  S.  G.  Goodrich,  of  "  Peter  Parley"  fame,  or  in  other 
similar  gift  books.  In  The  Token  appeared  Roger  Malvin's 
Burial,  The  Gentle  Boy — for  which  thirty-five  dollars  were 
paid— and  others  of  the  well-known  tales.  Goodrich  also 
attempted  to  find  a  publisher  for  the  Provincial  Tales,  and  in 
general  was  a  good  friend  to  the  young  writer,  introducing 
him  to  the  editor  of  The  New  England  Magazine,  in  which 
his  work  afterward  appeared. 

It  was  always  Hawthorne's  habit  to  use  his  own  experience 
for  the  material  of  his  writings,  so  that  though  little  is  said 
specifically  of  these  'prentice  years,  a  probably  correct  notion 
of  his  industry  and  his  discouragements  can  be  gained  from 
The  Devil  In  Manuscript,  in  which  the  speaker  visits  his 


194  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

friend,  an  author  named  "Oberon" — one  of  Hawthorne's 
pen-names — and  assists  at  the  burning  of  unsuccessful  manu 
scripts.  Many  of  Hawthorne's  moods  are  in  the  sketch — his 
humor  as  well  as  his  self-analysis. 

"  You  cannot  conceive,"  says  Oberon,  "what  an  effect  the 
composition  of  these  tales  has  had  on  me.  I  have  become 
ambitious  of  a  bubble,  and  careless  of  solid  reputation.  I 
am  surrounding  myself  with  shadows,  which  bewilder  me, 
by  aping  the  realities  of  life.  They  have  drawn  me  aside 
from  the  beaten  path  of  the  world,  and  led  me  into  a  strange 
sort  of  solitude, — a  solitude  in  the  midst  of  men, — where  no 
body  wishes  for  what  I  do,  nor  thinks  nor  feels  as  I  do.  The 
tales  have  done  all  this. 

"They  have  been  offered  to  some  seventeen  booksellers. 
It  would  make  you  stare  to  read  their  answers.  .  .  .  One 
man  publishes  nothing  but  school-books;  another  has  five 
novels  already  under  examination.  .  .  .  Another  gentleman 
is  just  giving  up  business  on  purpose,  I  verily  believe,  to  es 
cape  publishing  my  book.  Several,  however,  would  not  ab 
solutely  decline  the  agency,  on  my  advancing  half  the  cost  of 
an  edition,  and  giving  bonds  for  the  remainder,  besides  a 
high  percentage  to  themselves,  whether  the  book  sells  or  not. 

"And  then  the  various  moods  in  which  I  wrote!  Some 
times  my  ideas  were  like  precious  stones  under  the  earth,  re 
quiring  toil  to  dig  them  up,  and  care  to  polish  and  brighten 
them;  but  often  a  delicious  stream  of  thought  would  gush  out 
before  the  page  at  once,  like  water  sparkling  up  suddenly  in 
the  desert;  and  when  it  had  passed  I  gnawed  my  pen  hope 
lessly,  or  blundered  on  with  cold  and  miserable  toil,  as  if  there 
were  a  wall  of  ice  between  me  and  my  subject. 

"I  find  no  traces  of  the  golden  pen  with  which  I  wrote  in 
characters  of  fire.  My  treasure  of  fairy  coin  is  changed  to 
worthless  dross.  My  picture,  painted  in  what  seemed  the 
loveliest  hues,  presents  nothing  but  a  faded  and  indistinguish 
able  surface.  I  have  been  eloquent  and  poetical  and  humor 
ous  in  a  dream, — and  behold !  it  is  all  nonsense,  now  that  I  am 
awake." 

The  sketch  concludes  with  the  setting  fire  of  the  chimney, 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  195 

in  the  process  of  burning  the  manuscripts, — the  incident  al 
ready  referred  to.  The  manuscript  that  Hawthorne  actually 
burned  was  the  Seven  Tales  oj  My  Native  Land,  a  series  of 
stories  for  which  he  could  find  no  publisher.  But  in  spite 
of  his  shadowy  life  and  his  plentiful  discouragements,  his 
stories  were  slowly  making  their  way  in  the  gift-book  annuals 
and  magazines,  and  what  is  more  important,  he  was  develop 
ing  his  remarkable  style.  What  the  Hawthorne-lover  feels 
most  sharply  in  Fanshawe  is  the  total  absence  of  that  mellow 
charm  of  language  which  now  seems  but  a  natural  echo  of  his 
own  name;  the  first  book  was  written  correctly,  but  with  a 
tedious  flatness,  unrelieved  by  any  lift  of  phrase  or  sentence. 
And  this  improvement  of  style  seems  not  to  have  been  won  by 
outward  craft  or  calculation,  as  Poe  would  have  us  believe  he 
wrote,  but  rather  by  a  more  faithful  transference  of  his  own 
moods  into  words, — as  though  by  long  self-study  he  more 
effectively  grasped  the  subtler  reliefs  and  contrasts  of  his  ex 
quisite  nature,  and  with  increased  skill  became  more  sincere. 
His  art  is  the  same  in  any  form  of  writing  at  any  given  time. 
His  letters  and  private  journals  have  the  same  witchery,  the 
same  finality,  as  his  published  work;  so  closely  is  the  effect 
bound  up  in  his  personality,  that  in  his  mature  days  his  style 
seems  rather  a  portion  of  what  he  expressed,  than  a  means  of 
expressing  it. 

An  increasing  mastery  of  so  rare  a  gift  could  not  fail,  even 
in  Hawthorne's  obscurity,  to  win  some  praise  from  readers  of 
finer  judgment.  Park  Benjamin,  reviewing  The  Token  for 
1836,  singled  out  Hawthorne,  as  an  English  critic  in  the  same 
year  also  did,  for  special  praise.  The  American  editor  spoke 
of  him  as  the  "most  pleasing  writer  of  fanciful  prose,  except 
Irving,  in  the  country."  Perhaps  it  was  meager  praise,  after 
five  or  six  years  of  faithful  work,  but  it  had  the  accent  of  au 
thority;  evidently  where  he  made  his  mark,  he  would  make  it 
indelibly. 


196  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

In  1836  Goodrich  got  for  him  the  editorship  of  The  Ameri 
can  Magazine  0}  Useful  and  Entertaining  Knowledge,  an  un 
important  journal  published  in  Boston.  His  salary  was  to  be 
five  hundred  dollars,  which  in  view  of  his  small  earnings  as  a 
story-writer  seemed  to  him  and  his  friends  an  assuring  sum. 
It  turned  out,  however,  that  he  had  to  write  practically  all  of 
the  magazine,  with  some  help  from  his  older  sister,  and  in 
June  the  company  failed,  owing  him  part  of  his  salary.  He 
blamed  Goodrich  at  first,  but  fortunately  did  not  quarrel 
with  so  useful  a  friend;  he  and  Elizabeth  Hawthorne  shortly 
afterward  wrote  one  of  the  Peter  Parley  books,  the  Universal 
History  on  the  Basis  of  Geography,  the  money  for  which  he 
gave  to  his  sister, — one  hundred  dollars.  His  name  did  not 
appear  on  the  title-page  of  this  book,  and  though  it  had  a 
large  circulation,  it  brought  him  no  fame,  nor  was  the  money 
he  received  in  any  proportion  to  its  success. 

His  scattered  stories  continued  to  attract  the  attention  of 
a  few  discerning  minds,  but  their  anonymity  seriously  pre 
vented  him  from  making  a  reputation.  It  has  been  explained 
that  this  secrecy  was  not  entirely  due  to  his  modesty.  It 
would  have  injured  the  circulation  of  any  annual  to  have 
several  of  its  articles  obviously  by  the  same  writer,  and  for 
this  reason  Hawthorne  naturally  fell  into  the  habit  of  letting 
his  work  go  unclaimed,  or  signing  it  by  pen-names,  such  as 
"Oberon,"  and  "  Ashley  Allen  Roger."  By  1836,  however, 
his  stories  were  beginning  to  connect  themselves  with  his  real 
name,  which  was  announced  with  shrewd  praise,  probably  by 
Park  Benjamin,  in  The  American  Monthly  Magazine  for  Octo 
ber  of  that  year: — 

"The  author  of  'Sights  from  a  Steeple,'  of  'The  Gentle 
Boy,'  and  of  '  The  Wedding  Knell,'  we  believe  to  be  one  and 
the  same  individual.  The  assertion  may  sound  bold,  yet  we 
hesitate  not  to  call  this  author  second  to  no  man  in  this  coun 
try,  except  Washington  Irving.  .  .  .  Yes,  to  us  the  style  of 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  197 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  is  more  pleasing,  more  fascinating, 
than  any  one's  except  their  dear  Geoff ry  Crayon !  This  men 
tion  of  the  real  name  of  our  author  may  be  reprobated  by  him. 
His  modesty  is  the  best  proof  of  his  true  excellence.  How 
different  does  such  a  man  appear  to  us  from  one  who  anxiously 
writes  his  name  on  every  public  post !  We  have  read  a  suffi 
cient  number  of  his  pieces  to  make  the  reputation  of  a  dozen 
of  our  Yankee  scribblers;  and  yet  how  few  have  heard  the 
name  above  written !  He  does  not  even  cover  himself  with  the 
same  anonymous  shield  at  all  times;  but  liberally  gives  the 
praise,  which,  concentrated  on  one,  would  be  great,  to  several 
unknowns.  If  Mr.  Hawthorne  would  but  collect  his  various 
tales  and  essays  into  one  volume,  we  can  assure  him  that  their 
success  would  be  brilliant — certainly  in  England,  perhaps  in 
this  country." 

That  Hawthorne  did  finally  collect  into  a  volume  the  fruits 
of  his  twelve  years  of  seclusion,  was  due,  though  he  did  not 
know  it  at  the  time,  to  his  friend  Bridge,  whose  service,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  afterwards  acknowledged  in  the  dedication  of 
The  Snow  Image.  Bridge  had  kept  in  intimate  touch  with 
his  college  friend,  and  was  convinced  that  one  reasonable 
success  would  probably  draw  him  out  of  his  seclusion  into 
fame  and  the  wholesome  companionship  of  his  fellows.  He 
therefore  consulted  with  Goodrich,  who  undertook  to  get  an 
edition  of  a  thousand  copies  published,  if  two  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  were  guaranteed  against  the  cost.  Bridge  guar 
anteed  that  sum,  without  Hawthorne's  knowledge,  and 
under  the  title  of  Twice  Told  Tales,  a  collection  of  previously 
issued  stories  was  published  in  Boston  in  1837.  A  second 
edition,  with  another  volume  of  stories  added,  appeared  in 
1842;  it  was  the  first  edition,  however,  that  fairly  started  his 
fame,  and  ended  his  long  and  curious  apprenticeship. 

At  first  the  volume  made  little  headway,  but  its  hold  on 
the  public  extended  without  interruption.  The  American 
Monthly  Magazine  praised  the  author  again,  with  some 
journalistic  self -congratulation  at  having  praised  him  before. 


198  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Another  criticism  hailed  the  book  as  typically  American,  a 
true  expression  of  New  England.  But  the  most  generous  and 
intelligent  praise  came  from  Longfellow,  whom  Hawthorne 
had  known  little  in  college  and  less  since  then,  but  who  recog 
nized  in  the  new  author  an  old  classmate,  and  hastened  to 
say  a  characteristically  kind  word  for  his  genius.  Longfellow 
already  had  his  Harvard  professorship,  and  his  praise,  in  the 
pages  of  the  North  American  Review,  carried  as  much  weight 
as  any  criticism.  Hawthorne  had  sent  him  the  book  with  a 
modest  reintroduction  of  himself  to  the  poet's  memory, — 

"We  were  not,  it  is  true,  so  well  acquainted  at  college  that  I 
can  plead  an  absolute  right  to  inflict  my  twice-told  tediousness 
upon  you;  but  I  have  often  regretted  that  we  were  not  better 
known  to  each  other,  and  have  been  glad  of  your  success  in 
literature  and  in  more  important  matters.  .  .  .  The  pres 
ent  volumes  contain  such  articles  as  seemed  best  worth  of 
fering  to  a  public  a  second  time;  and  I  should  like  to  flatter 
myself  that  they  would  repay  you  some  part  of  the  pleasure 
which  I  have  derived  from  your  own  'Outre-Mer.' " 

Longfellow's  review,  after  pointing  out  in  a  somewhat  exu 
berant  style  the  poetic  attributes  he  finds  in  the  newly-risen 
star,  especially  the  quality  of  the  past  in  romance,  proceeds  to  - 
the  cardinal  merits  of  the  stories,  their  truth  to  the  New  Eng 
land  past,  and  the  exquisite  style  in  which  they  are  written. 
His  praise  of  the  native  themes  was  to  be  expected,  since  the 
tide  of  Americanism  was  strong  in  his  verse,  but  it  is  interest 
ing  to  see  that  his  bright  spirit  caught  nothing  of  the  dark 
shadows  of  Hawthorne's  Puritanism,  although  recognizing 
with  delight  its  picturesque  charm  for  literary  purposes: 

"Who  would  not  like  to  have  been  present  at  the  court  of  the 
worshipful  Thomas  Gorges,  in  those  palmy  days  of  the  law 
when  Tom  Heard  was  fined  five  shillings  for  being  drunk, 
and  John  Payne  the  same,  '  for  swearing  one  oath '  ?  Who 
would  not  like  to  have  seen  Thomas  Taylor  presented  to  the 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  199 

grand  jury  'for  abusing  Captain  Raynes,  being  in  author 
ity,  by  thee-ing  and  thou-ing  him ' ;  and  John  Wardell  likewise, 
for  denying  Cambridge  College  to  be  an  ordinance  of  God; 
and  people  fined  for  winking  at  comely  damsels  in  church; 
and  others  for  being  common  sleepers  there  on  the  Lord's 
Day  ?  Truly,  many  quaint  and  quiet  customs,  many  comic 
scenes  and  strange  adventures,  many  wild  and  wondrous 
things,  fit  for  humorous  tale  and  soft,  pathetic  story,  lie  all 
about  us  here  in  New  England." 

The  gratitude  of  Hawthorne's  letter  acknowledging  this 
praise  has  in  it  something  pathetic;  there  were  at  least  five 
persons,  he  said, — his  mother,  his  two  sisters,  his  aunt  and 
himself,  who  would  thereafter  believe  Longfellow  to  be  the 
most  sagacious  critic  on  earth.  Beneath  the  playful  tone  is  the 
consciousness  of  his  isolation,  which  perhaps  he  felt  most 
keenly  when  this  first  applause  called  him  into  the  general 
world.  The  same  consciousness  is  plainly  expressed  in  a  later 
letter  to  Longfellow,  giving  an  account  of  his  life  since  gradua 
tion,  and  laying  a  naturally  exaggerated  emphasis  on  the  in 
effectiveness  of  the  twelve  quiet  years.  His  self-distrust  and 
his  modesty  count  in  the  description:  "By  some  witchcraft  or 
other — for  I  really  cannot  assign  any  reasonable  why  and 
wherefore — I  have  been  carried  apart  from  the  main  current 
of  life,  and  find  it  impossible  to  get  back  again.  Since  we  last 
met,  which  you  remember  was  in  SawtelPs  room,  where  you 
read  a  farewell  poem  to  the  relics  of  the  class, — ever  since 
then  I  have  secluded  myself  from  society;  and  yet  I  never 
meant  any  such  thing,  nor  dreamed  what  sort  of  life  I  was 
going  to  lead.  I  have  made  a  captive  of  myself,  and  put  me 
into  a  dungeon,  and  now  I  cannot  find  the  key  to  let  myself 
out,— and  if  the  door  were  open,  I  should  be  almost  afraid  to 
come  out.  You  tell  me  that  you  have  met  with  trouble  and 
changes.  I  know  not  what  these  may  have  been,  but  I  can 
assure  you  that  trouble  is  the  next  best  thing  to  enjoyment, 
and  that  there  is  no  fate  in  this  world  so  horrible  as  to  have  no 


200  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

share  in  either  its  joys  or  sorrows.    For  the  last  ten  years,  I 
have  not  lived,  but  only  dreamed  of  living." 

This  letter  marks  probably  the  lowest  depths  of  Haw 
thorne's  seclusion  and  depression.  While  he  was  writing  it 
his  fortune  had  changed,  and  though  the  brooding  self- 
analysis  was  to  remain  the  chief  trait  of  his  nature,  the  record 
of  his  later  life  shows  that  he  took  a  busy,  if  a  quiet,  part  in 
daily  affairs,  and  was  a  far  less  shadowy  personage  than  he 
himself  and  some  of  his  critics  have  said. 

IV 

The  Twice  Told  Tales,  in  the  later  complete  edition,  sum 
up  practically  all  sides  of  Hawthorne's  genius,  and  in  a  way 
supply  the  key  to  his  longer  works.  One  hesitates  to  call 
them  "  short  stories,"  lest  the  term  should  imply  a  definite 
form  or  a  limited  subject ;  for  they  range  from  dramatic  scenes 
of  almost  tragic  intensity  to  cheerful  essays  in  the  vein  of  con 
versation,  suggesting  usually  a  larger  movement  of  thought, 
especially  in  the  tragic  scenes,  than  the  brief  form  can  in 
clude,  and  reproducing  in  the  essays  the  apparent  fugitive 
moods  and  fancies  of  a  dreamer,  without  any  form  at  all. 
This  is  not  to  deny  for  a  moment  the  perfect  grasp  of  theme 
and  economy  of  effect  that  result  in  the  unity  and  purpose  of  a 
work  of  art;  it  is  only  saying  that  these  tales  of  Hawthorne's 
are  nearer  to  Irving's  than  to  Poe's,  belonging  with  the  eight 
eenth  century  essay  rather  than  with  the  sharply  focused, 
well-economized  short  stories  of  the  modern  French  artists. 
The  resemblance  to  the  eighteenth  century  essay  is  stronger 
because  these  tales,  like  Addison's  papers,  often  seem  to  feel 
their  way  out  of  the  philosophizing  mood  into  straightforward 
narrative;  they  prophesy  on  the  one  side  a  development, 
which  Hawthorne  reached  in  The  Scarlet  Letter,  and  on  the 
other  hand  they  show  the  preponderance  in  his  nature  of  the 
analyzing,  meditative  faculty,  for  which  the  essay  is  the 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  201 

readiest  medium,  and  which  was  to  assert  itself  overwhelm-, 
ingly  in  his  later  romances. 

The  dramatic  scene  is  represented  in  the  collection  chiefly 
by  the  stories  of  colonial  legend,  such  as  The  Gray  Champion, 
which  Hawthorne  wisely  placed  first,  Endicott  and  the  Red 
Cross,  and  Howe's  Masquerade.  In  the  first  of  these,  as 
Hawthorne's  best  critic  has  pointed  out,  he  found  a  type  of 
story  suited  to  his  gifts,  and  by  repeated  use  of  it  he  brought 
it  to  a  peculiar  perfection;  so  far  as  outward  setting  is  con 
cerned,  it  is  the  literary  method  in  The  Scarlet  Letter.  It  is 
an  appeal  to  the  eye,  a  brief  and  carefully  prepared  action, 
and  a  final  tableau.  The  mechanical  setting,  however,  counts 
with  the  reader  far  less  than  the  sense  of  mystery  conveyed  in 
most  of  the  examples  of  this  type;  even  when  the  source  of  the 
mystery  is  explained  away,  as  in  Edward  Randolph's  Por 
trait,  the  effect  on  the  reader  is  unimpaired.  The  reason  dis 
closes  the  deep  moral  strain  in  Hawthorne's  art;  the  mystery 
he  is  interested  in  is  never  a  thing  of  morbid  nerves,  of  un 
canny  atmosphere,  nor  of  mechanical  device,  as  in  the  ro 
mantic  novelists  from  whom  Brockden  Brown  derived,  or  in 
Poe;  it  is  always  in  normal  life  itself,  as  the  story  teaches  the 
reader  to  reflect  upon  it  and  weigh  its  significance.  Whether 
the  Gray  Champion  is  or  is  not  one  of  the  regicides,  coming 
opportunely  from  his  hiding-place,  is  of  less  moment  than  the 
mystery  of  truth  driving  tyranny  back  upon  itself,  of  which  he 
is  the  parable,  and  which  is  emphasized  by  the  linking  of  the 
fights  at  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill  with  his  spirit;  whether 
Edward  Randolph's  portrait  of  itself  became  visible  to  warn 
Thomas  Hutchinson  of  his  soul's  peril,  or  whether  Alice  Vane 
renewed  the  old  picture  for  a  time  by  an  Italian  painter's 
trick,  is  as  nothing  compared  with  the  mysterious  curse  that 
fell  on  Randolph,  as  he  came  to  believe,  for  the  blood  shed  by 
his  betrayal  of  a  free  country. 

In  some  of  the  historical  tales,  however, — particularly  in 


202  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Endicott  and  the  Red  Cross,  Hawthorne  presents  what  is  for 
him  a  rare  theme,  the  Puritan  as  a  man  of  action.  When  he 
puts  aside  for  a  moment  the  meditative  character  he  is  so 
fitted  to  portray,  and  attempts  the  militant  New  Englander  of 
the  first  days,  the  effective  portrait  that  results  is  probably  an 
exaggeration  of  fanaticism, — a  character,  as  has  been  noticed, 
nearer  the  Covenanter  than  the  New  England  Puritan,  and 
perhaps  derived  from  Scott.  In  his  defiance  of  a  tyrannical 
church  and  king  Endicott  is  clothed  in  an  ideal  of  courageous 
patriotism,  and  he  has  the  reader's  approval  as  well  as  Haw 
thorne's  in  the  closing  words:  "Forever  honored  be  the  name 
of  Endicott!  We  look  back  through  the  mist  of  ages,  and 
recognize  in  the  rending  of  the  Red  Cross  from  New  Eng 
land's  banner  the  first  omen  of  that  deliverance  which  our 
fathers  consummated  after  the  bones  of  the  stern  Puritan  had 
lain  more  than  a  century  in  the  dust."  But  Endicott's  real 
sternness,  the  Covenanter  quality  that  Hawthorne  is  inclined 
to  ascribe  to  his  Puritan  men  of  action,  is  displayed  more  ef 
fectively,  with  little  to  justify  its  force,  in  The  Maypole  of 
Merry  Mount.  Few  of  Hawthorne's  tableaux  hold  a  place 
longer  in  the  memory  than  the  picture  of  the  hard  captain 
face  to  face  with  the  Lord  and  Lady  of  the  May, — types  of 
two  ideals  of  life,  which  in  their  irreconcilable  conflict  had 
haunted  the  English  imagination  for  centuries.  The  meeting 
is  too  momentous  for  even  Endicott  to  escape  its  influence; 
the  narrowness  of  his  imagination  is  emphasized  by  the  very 
pity  he  can  hardly  conceal : 

"The  youth,  in  the  peril  of  the  moment,  had  dropped  his 
gilded  staff,  and  thrown  his  arm  about  the  Lady  of  the  May, 
who  leaned  against  his  breast,  too  lightly  to  burden  him,  but 
with  weight  enough  to  express  that  their  destinies  were  linked 
together,  for  good  or  evil.  They  looked  first  at  each  other, 
and  then  into  the  grim  captain's  face.  There  they  stood,  in 
the  first  hour  of  wedlock,  while  the  idle  pleasures,  of  which 
their  companions  were  the  emblems,  had  given  place  to  the 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  203 

sternest  cares  of  life,  personified  by  the  dark  Puritans.  But 
never  had  their  youthful  beauty  seemed  so  pure  and  high  as 
when  its  glow  was  chastened  by  adversity. 

"  l Youth,'  said  Endicott,  'ye  stand  in  an  evil  case,  thou 
and  thy  maiden  wife.  Make  ready  presently,  for  I  am  minded 
that  ye  shall  both  have  a  token  to  remember  your  wedding 
day!' 

"  'Stern  man,5  cried  the  May  Lord,  'how  can  I  move  thee? 
Were  the  means  at  hand,  I  would  resist  to  the  death.  Being 
powerless,  I  entreat.  Do  with  me  as  thou  wilt,  but  let  Edith 
go  untouched!' 

"  'Not  so,'  replied  the  immitigable  zealot,  'We  are  not 
wont  to  show  an  idle  courtesy  to  that  sex  which  requireth  the 
stricter  discipline.  What  sayest  thou,  maid  ?  Shall  thy  silken 
bridegroom  suffer  thy  share  of  the  penalty,  besides  his  own  ? ' 

"  'Be  it  death,'  said  Edith,  'and  lay  it  all  on  me!' 

"Truly,  as  Endicott  had  said,  the  poor  lovers  stood  in  a 
woeful  case.  Their  foes  were  triumphant,  their  friends  cap 
tive  and  abased,  their  home  desolate,  the  benighted  wilder 
ness  around  them,  and  a  rigorous  destiny,  in  the  shape  of  the 
Puritan  leader,  their  only  guide.  Yet  the  deepening  twilight 
could  not  altogether  conceal  that  the  iron  man  was  softened ; 
he  smiled  at  the  fair  spectacle  of  early  love;  he  almost  sighed 
for  the  inevitable  blight  of  early  hopes. 

"  'The  troubles  of  life  have  come  hastily  upon  this  young 
couple,'  observed  Endicott.  'We  will  see  how  they  comfort 
themselves  under  their  present  trials  ere  we  burden  them  with 
greater.' ' 

In  all  the  dramatic  scenes  dealing  with  history  Hawthorne 
selects  for  treatment  a  critical  moment  of  change,  when  a  new 
era  asserts  itself  perceptibly  over  an  enfeebled  past.  He  has 
no  interest  in  action,  beyond  such  economical  limits  as  may 
show  forth  character,  and  for  history  as  an  evolution  he  cares 
little;  he  sees  life  in  its  instant  of  fatal  choice,  much  as  Brown 
ing  sees  it,  and  the  choice  is  usually  strongly  influenced  by  the 
past,  so  that  it  appears  the  work  of  destiny.  But  Hawthorne 
also  clothes  the  past  with  a  peculiar  moral  value;  he  fre 
quently  personifies  it,  so  that  it  enters  the  scene,  at  the  dra- 


204  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

matic  crises,  to  establish  long-delayed  justice  or  to  point  a 
warning.  This  is  the  mission  of  the  Gray  Champion,  of 
Edward  Randolph's  portrait,  and  of  the  phantom  procession 
in  Howe's  Masquerade.  The  vitality  of  the  past  in  this  type 
of  story  is  as  significant  as  the  promise  of  the  new  age,  and 
bears  the  peculiar  mark  of  Hawthorne's  reflective  tempera 
ment. 

In  none  of  his  stories  does  Hawthorne  seem  so  committed 
in  his  sympathies  as  in  these  historical  scenes.  Yet  even  in 
the  most  vigorous  of  them  some  part  of  his  nature  remains 
stubbornly  and  critically  aloof,  observing  with  exact  justice 
the  flaws  in  what  he  admires.  Unlike  Mrs.  Stowe,  Hawthorne 
could  advocate  nothing;  he  holds  no  brief  for  any  man  nor 
any  life,  nor  altogether  for  any  single  deed;  nor  even  for  hu 
man  nature  at  large.  The  many  aspects  of  truth,  weighed  in 
his  careful  thought,  induce  humor  or  irony,  but  lead  to  no 
final  judgment.  While  he  honors  Endicott  for  asserting  hu 
man  liberty,  he  is  scrupulous  to  portray  those  elements  in  the 
scene  that  indicate  the  Puritan  use  of  freedom, — the  whipping 
post,  the  pillory  and  the  stock;  the  Episcopalian  and  the  sus 
pected  Catholic  confined  by  the  head,  and  the  man  who  had 
drunk  a  health  to  the  king,  confined  by  the  legs;  the  "  Wanton 
Gospeller,"  who  had  dared  to  put  an  original  interpretation 
upon  Holy  Writ,  and  the  woman  with  a  cleft  stick  on  her 
tongue,  who  had  wagged  that  unruly  member  against  the 
elders  of  the  church.  The  irony  of  Hawthorne's  picture  is 
admirable,  yet  for  fear  his  humor  may  seem  to  make  a  dis 
tinction  between  the  inconsistencies  of  one  age  and  another, 
he  makes  haste  to  insert  the  characteristic  warning : 

"Let  not  the  reader  argue,  from  any  of  these  evidences  of 
iniquity,  that  the  times  of  the  Puritans  were  more  vicious 
than  our  own,  when,  as  we  pass  along  the  very  street  of  this 
sketch,  we  discern  no  badge  of  infamy  on  man  or  woman. 
It  was  the  policy  of  our  ancestors  to  search  out  even  the  most 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  205 

secret  sins,  and  expose  them  to  shame,  without  fear  or  favor, 
in  the  broadest  light  of  the  noonday  sun.  Were  such  the  cus 
tom  now,  perchance  we  might  find  materials  for  a  no  less 
piquant  sketch  than  the  above." 

This,  it  should  be  remembered,  is  in  the  story  that  records 
Endicott's  heroic  blow  for  liberty.  The  ironical  paradox  of 
the  scene  is  clear  enough.  If  we  needed  further  proof  of 
Hawthorne's  unwillingness  to  take  sides  or  pass  judgment, — 
what  seems  his  most  un-Puritan  trait, — we  might  find  it  in 
these  other  words,  evidently  his  own,  from  the  Journal  o]  an 
African  Cruiser,  which  he  edited  for  his  friend  Bridge  in 
1845  :  "  It  is  remarkable  that  Defoe,  a  man  of  the  most  severe 
and  delicate  conscience,  should  have  made  his  hero  a  slave- 
dealer,  and  should  display  a  perfect  insensibility  to  anything 
culpable  in  the  traffic.  Morality  has  taken  a  great  step  in  ad 
vance  since  that  day,  or,  at  least,  it  has  thrown  a  strong  light 
upon  one  spot,  with  perhaps  a  corresponding  shadow  upon 
some  other.  The  next  age  may  shift  the  illumination,  and 
show  us  sins  as  great  as  that  of  the  slave  trade,  but  which  now 
enter  into  the  daily  practice  of  men  claiming  to  be  just  and 
wise." 

In  strong  contrast  to  the  dramatic  scenes  in  Twice  Told 
Tales  are  the  sketches  of  the  essay  type,  full  of  gentle  wisdom 
and  keen  observation,  of  which  A  Rill  from  the  Town  Pump  is 
perhaps  the  best-known  example.  In  this  kind  of  writing 
Hawthorne  uses  the  most  meager  materials;  all  he  needs  is 
some  one  place  or  object  for  his  meditations  to  center  about, 
and  with  this  simple  unity  he  can  dispense  with  any  other 
structure.  None  of  his  work  seems  more  natural  than  these 
essay-sketches,  probably  because  they  represent  with  little 
change  the  way  his  mind  took  hold  of  life.  The  commonest 
object  would  suggest  to  him  the  experiences  it  was  open  to, 
and  his  speculations  would  explore  its  history  or  its  use  in 
search  of  simple  parables.  David  Swan,  The  Toll-Gatherer's 


206  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Day,  Sights  from  a  Steeple  and  Sunday  at  Home,  all  are  varia 
tions  of  the  type;  from  a  fixed  point  the  reader  is  made  to  feel 
the  normal  movement  of  life  as  it  touches  that  point,  and  to 
discern  its  humble  lessons.  It  is  characteristic  of  Hawthorne 
that  the  attitude  assumed  is  always  passive;  life  as  it  molds 
the  soul  is  his  theme,  and  the  element  of  fate  is  as  strong  in  the 
various  accidents  here  reckoned  with,  as  is  the  sense  of  the 
past  in  the  dramatic  sketches.  It  is  equally  characteristic  of 
Hawthorne,  however,  and  it  should  not  be  forgotten,  that  in 
these  essays  the  temper  is  beautifully  sane  and  cheerful. 
They  have  nothing  of  the  morbid  shadow  which  attaches  it 
self,  in  other  portions  of  his  work,  to  his  preoccupation  with 
the  problem  of  sin,  and  which  too  often  is  remembered  as  the 
sole  atmosphere  of  his  art.  These  quiet,  happy  essays,  full 
of  village  wisdom,  rich  though  limited,  and  slightly  elevated, 
if  at  all,  above  the  pitch  of  thoughtful  conversation,  are  in 
prose  the  counterpart  of  Longfellow's  more  popular  poems, 
and  appeal  to  the  same  taste.  If  it  has  been  the  custom  in 
our  time  to  think  lightly  of  Longfellow's  transparent  melo 
dies,  it  is  not  surprising  that  these  equally  obvious  prose  medi 
tations  should  seem  somewhat  infantile.  But  the  apprecia 
tive  reader  knows  the  rarity  of  this  clear  atmosphere,  in  both 
prose  and  verse;  it  has  never  been  duplicated  in  its  original 
purity  of  thought  and  word;  it  seems  a  blossoming  in  art  of 
the  more  delicate  celestial  strains  of  the  Puritan  temper,  with 
neither  its  overdeveloped  conscience  nor  its  will  to  be  accom 
plishing.  With  all  the  strong  moral  contrasts  with  which 
these  essay-tales  abound,  Hawthorne  troubles  himself  little 
in  them  to  arrive  at  any  conclusion;  sometimes  he  sees  several 
conclusions,  all  contradictory.  Whether  David  Swan  would 
have  been  better  or  worse  off  had  be  waked  to  meet  any  of  the 
intruders  upon  his  nap,  is  not  determined  in  Hawthorne's 
mind;  if  the  reader  passes  at  first  a  hasty  judgment,  in  his 
sympathy  with  the  pretty  girl  and  his  dislike  of  the  thieves. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  207 

he  may  catch  some  of  the  author's  prudence,  and  reconsider; 
and  if  he  makes  any  final  deduction,  it  will  be  a  cheerful  rev 
erence  for  fate.  ''Sleeping  or  waking,  we  hear  not  the  airy 
footsteps  of  the  strange  things  that  almost  happen.  Does  it 
not  argue  a  superintending  Providence  that,  while  viewless 
and  unexpected  events  thrust  themselves  continually  athwart 
our  path,  there  should  still  be  regularity  enough  in  mortal 
life  to  render  foresight  even  partially  available?" 

Hawthorne's  genius  takes  a  third  form  in  these  tales  in  the 
studies  of  psychological  experience,  or  homely  allegory,  such 
as  Wakefield  or  Dr.  Heidegger's  Experiment.  Perhaps  stories 
in  many  ways  so  different  should  hardly  be  classed  together; 
they  have  a  common  trait,  however,  in  the  deep  philosophical 
interest  which  they  seem  to  play  upon  and  half  express.  In 
the  more  psychological  sketches  Hawthorne  is  apparently 
fascinated  by  the  power  of  a  chance  resolve,  or  what  seems  a 
chance  resolve,  to  shape  a  man's  life;  so  Wakefield  in  the 
spirit  of  his  strange  joke  takes  up  his  residence  in  the  street 
next  his  home,  and  finding  it  daily  more  difficult  to  go  back, 
becomes  almost  permanently  exiled.  The  moral  is  plain 
enough,  and  Hawthorne  states  it  more  plainly  still  in  several 
places:  "Amid  the  seeming  confusion,"  he  says,  "of  our 
mysterious  world,  individuals  are  so  nicely  adjusted  to  a 
system,  and  systems  to  one  another  and  to  a  whole,  that,  by 
stepping  aside  for  a  moment,  a  man  exposes  himself  to  a 
fearful  risk  of  losing  his  place  forever."  This  is  simply  to  say, 
what  Hawthorne  was  destined  to  say  many  times  again,  with 
varied  emphasis  but  unchanged  conviction,  that  a  man's  life 
is  compelled  in  one  direction  or  another  by  an  increasingly 
absolute  fate,  made  up  of  his  own  acts.  "Would  that  I  had  a 
folio  to  write,  instead  of  an  article  of  a  dozen  pages!  Then 
might  I  exemplify  how  an  influence  beyond  our  control  lays 
its  strong  hand  on  every  deed  which  we  do,  and  weaves  its 
consequences  into  an  iron  tissue  of  necessity." 


208  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

This  fatalistic  bent  belongs  to  Hawthorne's  nature;  it  be 
longs  also  to  the  scientific  temper,  and  it  shows  chiefly  in 
those  stories  which  are  semi-scientific  in  their  psychological 
subject-matter  or  treatment.  It  has  been  thought  by  most  of 
Hawthorne's  biographers  that  his  theory  of  the  fatality  of  acts 
was  founded  largely  upon  a  tragic  experience  of  his  own  life. 
In  the  belief  that  a  young  lady,  whom  he  knew  well,  had  been 
insulted,  he  challenged  the  supposed  offender  to  a  duel,  but 
was  prevented  from  carrying  out  his  purpose  by  his  friends 
Pierce  and  Cilley,  who  showed  him  that  the  supposed  insult 
was  entirely  mythical.  A  few  years  later  Cilley  was  himself 
challenged  by  a  political  enemy,  and  the  fact  that  Hawthorne 
had  been  willing  to  fight  a  duel  is  said  to  have  persuaded  him 
not  to  decline;  and  his  opponent  killed  him.  But  whether  or 
not  this  account  be  true,  and  whether  Hawthorne  brooded 
over  his  share  in  his  friend's  death,  Wake  field  was  published 
before  Cilley  was  killed,  and  the  fatalism  there  expressed 
came  from  the  author's  temperament,  not  from  his  experi 
ence. 

The  same  sense  of  fate  is  in  the  homely  allegories,  and  their 
moral  vein  is  no  less  strong,  but  Hawthorne  uses  them  chiefly 
to  point  the  significant  coincidences  and  contrasts  of  daily 
life.  Dr.  Heidegger's  Experiment  teaches  as  a  general  moral 
the  uselessness  of  avoiding  the  natural  lot;  to  be  young  again 
after  many  years  proves  no  advantage  to  the  Widow  Wych- 
erly.  But  Hawthorne  interests  us  also  in  the  incongruous 
mirth  that  comes  with  artificial  youth  to  the  old  people; 
"They  laughed  loudly  at  their  old-fashioned  attire,  the  wide- 
skirted  coats  and  flapped  waistcoats  of  the  young  men,  and  the 
ancient  cap  and  gown  of  the  blooming  girl.  One  limped 
across  the  floor  like  a  gouty  grandfather;  one  set  a  pair  of 
spectacles  astride  of  his  nose,  and  pretended  to  pore  over  the 
black-letter  pages  of  the  book  of  magic;  a  third  seated  him 
self  in  an  armchair,  and  strove  to  imitate  the  venerable  dignity 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  209 

of  Dr.  Heidegger.  Then  all  shouted  mirthfully,  and  leaped 
about  the  room."  As  a  kind  of  parallel  to  this  uncanny  res 
toration,  Hawthorne  describes  the  recovered  beauty  of  the 
dried  rose  the  Doctor  has  cherished  for  half  a  century;  it  rein 
forces  the  sense  of  fate,  for  its  fading  comes  without  any  fault 
of  its  own;  unlike  the  human  characters,  it  has  not  brought 
age  upon  itself  a  second  time  by  thoughtless  or  undignified 
conduct. 

These  first  stories  of  Hawthorne's,  with  their  threefold  in 
terest  in  the  dramatic  side  of  history,  in  the  reflective  wis 
dom  of  every-day  life,  such  as  makes  the  material  of  the  fa 
miliar  essay,  and  in  the  psychological  or  allegorical  situa 
tion, — give  in  outline  the  qualities  and  limitations  of  his 
genius,  which  his  later  books  simply  expand  and  illustrate. 
In  these  brief  tales  and  sketches  he  comes  directly  into  com 
parison  with  Irving  and  Poe,  the  other  masters  of  the  short 
story  in  American  literature.  The  Addisonian  influence  in 
both  Irving  and  Hawthorne  makes  certain  resemblances  be 
tween  them  quite  natural;  Poe,  in  his  essay  on  Hawthorne's 
Tales,  repeatedly  marks  the  likeness;  "The  Spectator,  Mr. 
Irving,  and  Hawthorne  have  in  common,"  he  says,  "that 
tranquil  and  subdued  manner  which  I  have  chosen  to  denom 
inate  repose;11  and  in  another  place,  "the  natural"  in  com 
position,  he  says,  "is  best  exemplified,  among  English  writers, 
in  Addison,  Irving,  and  Hawthorne."  In  the  essay  type  of 
sketch,  where  he  deals  with  a  limited  life,  illuminating  it  by 
wise  reflection  and  humor,  Hawthorne  is  nearest  the  New 
York  writer;  they  are  alike,  also,  in  a  certain  lack  of  energy  in 
their  grip  of  the  story — a  tendency  to  play  with  it — for  which 
Hawthorne  has  been  severely  criticized.  The  emotional  ap 
peal  that  has  made  Rip  Van  Winkle  beloved  of  American 
playgoers,  is  largely  due  to  the  familiar  stage-version  and  to 
Mr.  Jefferson's  acting;  Irving's  story  is  pale  and  slight  in  com 
parison.  And  the  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  though  more 


2io  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

richly  varied  in  human  character  and  stronger  in  plot,  is  yet  a 
fanciful  tale,  and  belongs  among  the  most  fragile  creations  of 
poetry.  The-  humorous  interest  in  character  as  it  shows  it 
self  in  homely  encounters,  the  parochial  curiosity,  delight 
fully  caught  in  the  episode  of  The  Stout  Gentleman,  in  Brace- 
bridge  Hall,  is  of  the  very  fabric  of  Hawthorne's  genius  in 
its  lighter  moments.  Yet  the  resemblances  between  the  two 
stylistic  masters  of  American  prose  need  not  seem  to  weigh 
heavily  against  their  large  differences.  In  the  very  lightness 
of  touch,  the  trifling  moment  in  which  they  seem  to  find 
common  ground,  they  are  totally  unlike,  as  one  hardly  needs 
to  point  out;  Irving' s  manner  suggests  great  riches  of  experi 
ence  and  a  wide  culture,  borne  without  consciousness,  and 
enjoyed  without  more  reflection  than  is  needed  for  storing 
away  such  comfortable  wisdom;  Hawthorne's  lightness  in 
evitably  suggests  shadows  withdrawn  for  the  moment  only — 
his  nature,  for  once  relaxed  into  playfulness,  is  at  once  nar 
rower  and  deeper  than  Irving's,  and  sunlight  in  it  is  a  sur 
prise.  More  than  any  other  of  our  prose  writers,  Irving  is 
simply  a  man  of  letters;  his  interest  is  in  life  as  it  lends  itself  to 
happy  memories  and  literary  record;  he  is  neither  a  political 
theorist  like  Cooper,  nor  a  propounder  and  experimenter  of 
esthetic  theory,  like  Poe,  nor  a  moral  psychologist  like  Haw 
thorne.  In  a  sense  he  is  even  more  occupied  with  the  past 
than  Hawthorne,  for  out  of  the  past  his  temper  rescues  no 
light  for  the  future,  no  destiny  for  the  race,  but  only  the  charm 
and  flavor  of  age,  of  ancient  cheerful  customs  and  old  wine. 
His  genius  lent  itself  to  no  exploring,  except  backwards  into 
the  golden  world  of  books  and  bookish  tradition;  though  he 
made  the  attempt,  he  could  not  grapple  with  the  new  frontier 
world  of  Cooper,  nor  would  he  even  attempt  the  spiritual  ex 
ploration  in  which  Hawthorne  is  most  himself.  For  that  rea 
son,  perhaps,  Irving's  great  gifts  and  beautiful  nature  seem  to 
have  been  left  behind  in  the  movement  of  American  literature; 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  211 

he  is  still  beloved,  but  he  takes  his  place  in  the  memory  among 
English  writers,  as  though  he  belonged  to  the  old  country,  so 
much  of  whose  charm  as  a  literary  shrine  he  discovered  for  the 
English-speaking  race. 

It  is  with  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  however,  that  Hawthorne  is 
most  often  and  most  naturally  compared.  They  two  have 
practised  the  writing  of  the  short  story  in  America  with  a 
mastery  still  unapproached ;  and  both  are  notable,  in  the  popu 
lar  opinion,  for  a  dark  strain  in  their  art,  a  morbid  temper 
ament  which  singularly  joins  their  fame.  In  mere  technic,  the 
management  of  incident,  the  description  of  scene,  and  most  of 
all  in  a  perfect  unity  of  tone,  which  gives  to  their  masterpieces 
a  remarkable  effect  of  completeness,  they  readily  stand  com 
parison  with  each  other,  and  in  deeper  ways  they  suggest  sim 
ilarities.  Most  obvious  of  their  common  traits  is  their  pre 
occupation  with  wickedness  and  death, — with  that  sort  of 
concealed  sin  especially  that  produces  mental  horror  in  the 
reader;  to  the  uncritical  reader  The  Black  Cat,  William  Wil 
son,  The  Cask  of  Amontillado,  and  Ligeia,  the  first  titles  that 
come  to  mind,  have  a  strong  affinity  to  The  Minister's  Black 
Veil,  The  Wedding  Knell,  or,  to  anticipate  in  Hawthorne's 
work,  Rappaccini's  Daughter  and  Ethan  Brand.  In  only  one 
respect,  however,  are  these  writers  alike;  they  are  both  masters 
of  artistic  "keeping";  they  both  have  control  of  the  single 
mood  or  color  or  plot  at  will,  so  that  The  Fall  of  the  House  0} 
Usher  is  a  unit  of  atmosphere,  The  Masque  of  the  Red  Death 
a  unit  of  color,  Rappaccini's  Daughter  a  unit  of  idea.  But  this 
is  only  to  say  that  both  writers  are  masters  of  the  short  story. 
In  other  respects  they  are  strikingly  individual.  Poe  is  unap 
proached  in  the  intellectual  vigor  of  many  of  his  plots;  Haw 
thorne  is  as  unique  in  American  literature  for  style,  in  the 
deepest  sense.  With  Poe  the  motive  of  his  art  is  essentially 
intellectual,  and  therefore  he  appears  to  work  from  without; 
Hawthorne's  genius  is  the  flowering  of  New  England  char- 


212  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

acter,  and  character  is  always  his  subject,  and  therefore  his 
art  appears  to  work  from  within.  He  studies  the  experiences 
of  the  soul  for  their  effect  upon  the  soul's  destiny;  Poe  studies 
all  incidents  in  their  own  world,  for  their  own  sake,  with  re 
gard  to  their  scientific  or  artistic  relation  to  each  other,  not 
to  the  soul,  and  his  highest  interest  is  not  spiritual  but  psycho 
logical. 

It  is  doubtless  unwise  to  believe  Poe's  account  of  his  own 
mental  processes.  No  poet,  probably,  could  have  accom 
plished  by  purely  intellectual  methods  so  emotional  a  master 
piece  as  The  Raven.  The  intuition  of  the  artist,  which  gets 
so  little  credit  in  Poe's  self-analysis,  must  have  been  his  in 
superb  measure.  Yet  it  must  be  conceded  that  his  main  pre 
occupation,  outside  of  the  poems  and  the  few  great  romances 
already  mentioned,  is  with  reason  rather  than  emotion  or 
character,  and  his  criticisms  of  other  writing  than  his  own  are 
founded  on  purely  intellectual  appreciations.  His  essential 
separation  from  Hawthorne's  spirit  is  written  in  every  line  of 
the  essay  on  his  great  contemporary's  Tales.  The  manage 
ment  of  allegory,  the  successful  keeping  of  tone,  the  finely 
restrained  manner,  and  the  ordinary  working  up  of  plot — 
these  engaged  Poe's  attention;  but  with  the  deeper  meaning, — . 
what  he  calls  the  "  mysticism," — he  is  curiously  out  of  tune. 
He  digresses  characteristically  to  show  that  Hawthorne  had 
plagiarized  from  William  Wilson  in  Howe's  Masquerade. 
Considering  the  different  temperaments  of  the  writers,  we 
are  not  surprised  that  Poe  overlooks  the  distinction  between 
his  own  conception  of  a  haunting  double,  and  Hawthorne's 
phantom  pageant,  with  its  twofold  mystery  of  the  past  and  the 
future.  Yet  it  is  certainly  remarkable  that  Poe  should  attempt 
to  establish  the  supposed  plagiarism,  not  in  the  likeness  of 
plot  or  situation,  but  in  fancied  resemblances  of  language, 
which  must  be  italicized  to  be  noticed.  The  whole  essay,  and 
particularly  this  passage,  significant  for  all  it  is  blind  to,  or 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  213 

intentionally  fails  to  mention,  in  Hawthorne's  work,  serves  as 
an  easy  measure  of  difference  in  the  nature  and  art  of  the  two 
men. 

Most  characteristically,  however,  Hawthorne  and  Poe 
differ  in  the  treatment  of  evil.  The  readiest  way  to  a  distinc 
tion  is  to  say  that  Hawthorne  deals  with  sin,  and  Poe  with 
crime.  The  actual  deed  monopolizes  Poe's  attention;  or  if  he 
studies  its  consequences,  as  in  The  Black  Cat,  it  is  only  so  far 
as  they  lead  to  other  outward  deeds,  all  linked  together  in  a 
logical  fate,  but  apart  from  the  soul.  Whatever  horror  be 
longs  with  such  tales  Poe  depicts  with  great  power,  as  in 
this  story  or  in  The  Cask  o)  Amontillado;  but  the  horror  is 
treated  as  an  artistic  effect,  studied  lovingly  for  its  own  sake; 
it  is  physical,  and  springs  from  no  fundamental  sense  of  right 
or  wrong.  The  victim  in  The  Cask  of  Amontillado  does 
not  deserve  his  fate;  the  murderer  in  The  Black  Cat  does  de 
serve  his;  yet  the  horror  of  the  first  story  is  without  pity,  and 
in  the  second  it  is  without  approval  of  the  doomed  man's  fate. 
Poe's  art  is  in  the  highest  sense  literary.  It  derives  from  the 
Gothic  tales  of  terror,  and  is  nourished  by  esthetic  and  ner 
vous  rather  than  by  moral  experiences.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
need  hardly  be  stated  again  that  Hawthorne's  art  is  a  natural 
expression  of  a  deep  nature  brooding  upon  the  enigma  of 
character  and  its  relation  to  evil — the  fit  problem  for  a  son  of 
the  Puritans;  and  his  art  takes  on  beauty,  not  by  forethought, 
but  out  of  the  sources  of  his  own  loving  nature.  How  far 
he  departed  temperamentally  from  Poe's  unmoral  interest  in 
crime  as  a  literary  asset,  is  witnessed  by  Poe's  ignoring  of  the 
theme  in  Hawthorne's  work,  as  though  unaware  that  their 
paths  even  appeared  to  cross  in  the  study  of  evil.  He  pro 
nounced  rashly  that  Hawthorne's  genius  lay  entirely  in  the 
bright,  Addisonian  sketches  of  cheerful  village  life,  and  shut 
his  eyes  to  the  strange  power  that  was  to  create  The  Scarlet 
Letter  and  The  Marble  Faun. 


214  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 


V 

After  the  publication  of  Twice  Told  Tales  Hawthorne's 
life  continued  for  a  while  unchanged.  He  wrote  more  stories 
and  lived  quietly  at  home,  though  his  friends  cast  about  to 
find  occupation  for  him  that  would  bring  more  immediate 
fame  and  profit.  It  belonged  to  the  charm  of  his  character  to 
arouse  such  loyal  interest  in  those  who  penetrated  his  seclu 
sion,  and  few  artists  have  been  served  by  their  friends  with 
more  kindness  and  wisdom  than  Hawthorne.  His  life 
changed  decisively,  however,  not  through  their  efforts,  but 
through  his  acquaintance  with  Sophia  Peabody,  with  whom 
he  fell  in  love,  and  who  became  his  wife.  The  Peabodys,  once 
neighbors  of  the  Hawthornes  in  his  childhood,  had  lost  sight 
of  the  family  during  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  residence  in  Maine. 
After  the  appearance  of  Twice  Told  Tales,  Elizabeth  Pea- 
body  recognized  in  the  author  a  childhood  acquaintance,  and 
reopened  the  intercourse  of  the  two  households.  She  herself 
was  a  woman  of  intellect  and  character,  still  remembered  for 
her  work  in  education;  her  sister  Mary  was  to  be  the  wife  of 
Horace  Mann;  Sophia,  the  youngest,  was  an  artist,  a  person 
of  strong  enthusiasms  and  delicate  sensitiveness,  altogether  as 
rare  a  being  as  Hawthorne  ever  conceived  in  his  stories,  and 
the  severe  headaches  that  had  made  her  practically  an  invalid 
for  twenty  years,  though  they  left  her  fragile,  had  diminished 
nothing  of  the  sweetness  of  her  character. 

It  was  in  1838  that  Hawthorne  and  his  sisters  first  called  on 
the  neighboring  family.  The  meeting  of  Hawthorne  and  his 
future  wife  has  been  described  by  Elizabeth  Peabody. 

"I  was  alone  in  the  drawing-room;  but  Sophia,  who  was 
still  an  invalid,  was  in  her  chamber.  As  soon  as  I  could,  I  ran 
upstairs  to  her  and  said,  '  O  Sophia,  you  must  get  up  and 
dress  and  come  down!  The  Hawthornes  are  here,  and  you 
never  saw  anything  so  splendid  as  he  is — he  is  handsomer 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  215 

than  Lord  Byron!'     She  laughed,  but  refused  to  come,  re 
marking  that  since  he  had  called  once,  he  would  call  again. 

"  He  did  call  again,  as  Sophia  had  predicted,  not  long  after 
wards;  and  this  time  she  came  down,  in  her  simple  white 
wrapper,  and  sat  on  the  sofa.  As  I  said  'My  sister,  Sophia,' 
he  rose  and  looked  at  her  intently, — he  did  not  realize  how 
intently.  As  we  went  on  talking,  she  would  frequently  inter 
pose  a  remark,  in  her  low,  sweet  voice.  Every  time  she  did 
so,  he  would  look  at  her  again,  with  the  same  piercing,  in- 
drawing  gaze.  I  was  struck  with  it,  and  thought,  '  What  if  he 
should  fall  in  love  with  her!'  and  the  thought  troubled  me; 
for  she  had  often  told  me  that  nothing  would  ever  tempt  her 
to  marry,  and  inflict  on  a  husband  the  care  of  an  invalid." 

In  the  course  of  the  friendship  that  sprang  up  between  the 
Peabodys  and  the  Hawthornes  much  characteristic  light  is 
thrown  upon  both  families.  Hawthorne  for  some  time  was 
far  more  the  friend  than  the  lover,  and  in  spite  of  Elizabeth 
Peabody's  premonition  no  one  seems  to  have  suspected  the 
attachment  that  was  gathering  force — unless  it  was  Elizabeth 
Hawthorne,  who  perhaps  showed  her  interest  in  the  matter 
when  she  appropriated  the  flowers  Elizabeth  Peabody  had 
sent  to  her  brother,  saying  that  they  would  be  unworthily 
bestowed  upon  him,  "who  professes  to  regard  the  love  of 
flowers  as  a  feminine  taste.  So  I  permitted  him  to  look  at 
them,  but  considered  them  a  gift  to  myself." 

Hawthorne  showed  his  realization  of  his  love  by  a  deter 
mined  effort  to  make  an  immediate  place  for  himself  in  the 
world.  The  dream-life  that  had  been  his,  suddenly  paled, 
and  he  was  ready  to  do  anything  practical  that  might  give 
him  the  prospect  he  now  needed.  He  was  secretly  engaged  to 
Sophia  Peabody,  his  own  mother  not  being  told,  for  fear  the 
shock  of  the  news  might  prove  disastrous  to  her.  The  mar 
riage  must  have  seemed  far  away  to  both  the  lovers,  for 
Sophia  had  engaged  herself  on  condition  that  she  recovered 
from  her  invalidism — a  condition  that  bade  fair  to  be  insur- 


216  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

mountable;  and  of  course  Hawthorne  had  to  find  means  to 
support  her.  Such  means  seemed  at  hand,  however,  in  the 
appointment  as  weigher  and  gauger  in  the  Boston  Custom 
house,  where  George  Bancroft,  the  historian,  was  collector 
of  the  port.  So  Hawthorne  left  the  little  room  in  the  old 
house,  in  which  he  had  won  his  first  share  of  fame,  and  took 
up  his  new  and  comparatively  humble  duties  in  January, 
1839. 

The  entries  in  his  journal  give  a  clear  record  of  those  duties, 
all  of  which  he  performed  conscientiously;  they  also  give  evi 
dence  that  these  rough  experiences  were  stored  in  his  memory 
as  precious  points  of  contact  with  real  life.  In  a  letter  to 
Longfellow  soon  after  the  appointment  Hawthorne  wrote 
jocularly  of  the  literary  use  to  which  he  might  turn  his  new 
career,  and  the  journal  is  a  more  serious  witness  to  the  minute 
attention  he  gave  to  every  human  interest  in  the  routine  of  his 
work.  While  he  was  literally  toiling,  getting  down  to  the 
wharf  each  day  before  the  workmen,  so  that  their  working 
hours,  by  which  they  were  paid,  might  be  as  long  as  possible, 
he  was  also,  as  he  realized,  disciplining  his  dreamer's  soul  to 
actual  things — the  best,  unconscious  preparation  for  such 
writing  as  The  Scarlet  Letter.  Just  what  his  life  was,  or  a 
large  daily  part  of  it,  is  told  in  the  entry  for  February  7, 
1839.- 

"  Yesterday  and  day  before,  measuring  a  load  of  coal  from 
the  schooner  Thomas  Lowder,  of  St.  John's,  N.  B.  A  little, 
black,  dirty  vessel.  The  coal  stowed  in  the  hold,  so  as  to  fill 
the  schooner  full,  and  make  her  a  solid  mass  of  black  ma 
terial.  The  master,  Best,  a  likely  young  man;  his  mate  a 
fellow  jabbering  in  some  strange  gibberish,  English  I  be 
lieve — or  nearer  that  than  anything  else — but  gushing  out  all 
together — whole  sentences  confounded  into  one  long,  unin 
telligible  word.  Irishmen  shovelling  the  coal  into  the  two 
Custom-house  tubs,  to  be  craned  out  of  the  hold,  and  others 
wheeling  it  away  in  barrows,  to  be  laden  into  wagons.  The 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  217 

first  day,  I  walked  the  wharf,  suffering  not  a  little  from  cold; 
yesterday,  I  sat  in  the  cabin,  whence  I  could  look  through 
the  interstices  of  the  bulkhead,  or  whatever  they  call  it,  into 
the  hold.  My  eyes,  what  a  cabin!  Three  paces  would  more 
than  measure  it  in  any  direction,  and  it  was  filled  with  barrels, 
not  clean  and  new,  but  black,  and  containing  probably  the 
provender  of  the  vessel;  jugs,  firkins,  the  cook's  utensils  and 
kitchen  furniture — everything  grimy  and  sable  with  coal  dust. 
There  were  two  or  three  tiers  of  berths;  and  the  blankets,  etc., 
are  not  to  be  thought  of.  A  cooking  stove,  wherein  was  burn 
ing  some  of  the  coal — excellent  fuel,  burning  as  freely  as 
wood,  and  without  the  bituminous  melting  of  Newcastle  coal. 
The  cook  of  the  vessel,  a  grimy,  unshaven,  middle-aged  man, 
trimming  the  fire  at  need,  and  sometimes  washing  his  dishes 
in  water  that  seemed  to  have  cleansed  the  whole  world  be 
forehand — the  draining  of  gutters,  or  caught  at  sink-spouts. 
In  the  cessations  of  labor,  the  Irishmen  in  the  hold  would 
poke  their  heads  through  the  open  space  into  the  cabin  and 
call  'Cook!' — for  a  drink  of  water  or  a  pipe — whereupon 
Cook  would  fill  a  short  black  pipe,  put  a  coal  into  it,  and  stick 
it  into  the  Irishman's  mouth.  Here  sat  I  on  a  bench  before 
the  fire,  the  other  guests  of  the  cabin  being  the  stevedore,  who 
takes  the  job  of  getting  the  coal  ashore,  and  the  owner  of  the 
horse  that  raised  the  tackle — the  horse  being  driven  by  a  boy. 
The  cabin  was  lined  with  slabs — the  rudest  and  dirtiest  hole 
imaginable,  yet  the  passengers  had  been  accommodated  here 
in  the  trip  from  New  Brunswick.  The  bitter  zero  atmosphere 
came  down  the  companion-way,  and  threw  its  chill  over  me 
sometimes,  but  I  was  pretty  comfortable,  though,  on  reaching 
home,  I  found  that  I  had  swaggered  through  several  thronged 
streets  with  coal  streaks  on  my  visage. 

"The  wharfinger's  office  is  a  general  resort  and  refuge  for 
people  who  have  business  to  do  on  the  wharf,  in  the  spaces 
before  work  is  commenced,  between  the  hours  of  one  and  two, 
etc.  A  salamander  stove — a  table  of  the  signals,  wharves, 
and  agent  of  packets  plying  to  and  from  Boston — a  snuff 
box — a  few  chairs,  etc.,  constituting  the  furniture.  A  news 
paper." 

For  a  while  Hawthorne's  genius  gathered  strength,  Antaeus- 


218  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

like,  from  this  sordid  contact;  then  tlie  severe  restraint  be 
came  irksome.  Throughout  his  life  all  attempts  to  deal  closely 
with  actual,  routine  things  ended  in  a  discontent  of  the  spirit 
which  had  no  relation  to  indolence,  but  simply  proved  to  what 
realm  he  was  native.  His  own  words,  from  which  the  best 
accounts  of  the  next  years  must  be  taken,  show  the  stages  of 
this  discontent.  The  first  note  is  sounded  on  July  3,  1839. 

"I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  I  am  unhappy  or  discontented, 
for  this  is  not  the  case.  My  life  is  only  a  burden  in  the  same 
way  that  it  is  to  every  toilsome  man;  and  mine  is  a  healthy 
weariness,  such  as  needs  only  a  night's  sleep  to  remove  it. 
But  from  henceforth  forever  I  shall  be  entitled  to  call  the  sons 
of  toil  my  brothers,  and  shall  know  how  to  sympathize  with 
them,  seeing  that  I  likewise  have  risen  at  the  dawn,  and  borne 
the  fervor  of  the  midday  sun,  nor  turned  my  heavy  footsteps 
homeward  till  eventide.  Years  hence,  perhaps,  the  experi 
ence  that  my  heart  is  acquiring  now  will  flow  out  in  truth  and 
wisdom." 

By  the  following  February  the  discontent  becomes  more 
apparent. 

"  All  day  long  again  have  I  been  engaged  in  a  very  black 
business, — as  black  as  a  coal;  and,  though  my  face  and 
hands  have  undergone  a  thorough  purification,  I  feel  not  al 
together  fit  to  hold  communion  with  doves.  Methinks  my 
profession  is  somewhat  akin  to  that  of  a  chimney-sweeper; 
but  the  latter  has  the  advantage  over  me,  because,  after  climb 
ing  up  through  the  darksome  flue  of  the  chimney,  he  merges 
into  the  midst  of  the  golden  air,  and  sings  out  his  melodies  far 
over  the  heads  of  the  whole  tribe  of  weary  earth-plodders." 

A  month  later  Hawthorne  speaks  for  a  moment  of  the  com 
pensation  for  his  weary  toil. 

"It  is  good  for  me,  on  many  accounts,  that  my  life  has  had 
this  passage  in  it.  I  know  much  more  than  I  did  a  year  ago. 
[  have  a  stronger  sense  of  power  to  act  as  a  man  among  men. 
I  have  gained  worldly  wisdom,  and  wisdom  also  that  is  not  al- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  219 

together  of  this  world.  And,  when  I  quit  this  earthly  cavern 
where  I  am  now  buried,  nothing  will  cling  to  me  that  ought  to 
be  left  behind.  Men  will  not  perceive,  I  trust,  by  my  look,  or 
the  tenor  of  my  thoughts  and  feelings,  that  I  have  been  a 
custom-house  officer." 

And  still  later,  when  his  duties  took  him  to  the  cleaner 
work  of  inspecting  the  salt  vessels,  he  writes, — 

"  Rejoice  with  me,  for  I  am  free  from  a  load  of  coal  which 
has  been  pressing  upon  my  shoulders  throughout  all  the  hot 
weather.  I  am  convinced  that  Christian's  burden  consisted 
of  coal;  and  no  wonder  he  felt  so  relieved,  when  it  fell  off  and 
rolled  into  the  sepulchre.  His  load,  however,  at  the  utmost, 
could  not  have  been  more  than  a  few  bushels,  whereas  mine 
was  exactly  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  chaldrons  and  seven 
tubs." 

Hawthorne's  work  in  the  Boston  Custom-house  ended  in 
April,  1841,  with  a  change  of  political  administration.  In 
1840,  after  the  death  of  their  brother  George,  for  some  time 
an  invalid,  the  Peabodys  had  moved  to  Boston,  and  the  lovers 
saw  much  of  each  other;  however  impatient  he  must  have 
been  and  wearied  of  his  office,  Hawthorne  could  not  have  been 
unhappy  during  this  period.  Apparently  he  had  expected  to 
save  some  leisure  each  day  for  writing,  but  the  routine  of  his 
tasks  left  him  inspiration  for  little  besides  the  notes  and 
sketches  in  his  journal.  Had  he  stayed  longer  in  this  en 
vironment,  perhaps  he  would  have  found  his  voice  again;  as 
it  was,  his  genius  was  chiefly  occupied  in  absorbing  and  as 
similating  the  materials  of  his  novel  experiences.  Exception 
must  be  made,  however,  of  three  books  for  children,  published 
between  November,  1840,  and  February,  1841,  and  written — 
it  has  been  suggested — under  the  influence  of  Elizabeth  Pea- 
body,  who  had  started  a  book-store.  The  three  volumes, — 
Grandfather's  Chair,  Famous  Old  People  and  Liberty  Tree, 
are  a  series  of  historical  tales  of  early  New  England,  admirably 


220  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

written,  with  an  obvious  educational  purpose.  Hawthorne's 
long  acquaintance  with  the  New  England  past  must  have 
made  this  writing  a  simple  task,  but  its  purpose  naturally 
prevented  him  from  developing  the  material  in  characteristi 
cally  subtle  ways.  Yet  if  little  of  his  genius  finds  important 
expression  here,  it  should  be  remembered  that  these  books, 
like  the  later  reworking  of  the  Greek  myths,  expressed  his 
interest  in  children, — no  negligible  part  of  his  nature. 

Upon  losing  his  position  in  the  Custom-house,  Hawthorne 
joined  the  Brook  Farm  movement,  apparently  with  the  hope 
that  it  might  provide  a  home  eventually  for  himself  and  his 
betrothed.  It  has  never  been  thought  that  he  entered  the 
community  through  any  deep  sympathy  with  its  aims;  his 
spirit  never  kindled  in  any  social  cause,  nor  any  reform.  The 
community  idea  had,  indeed,  long  appealed  to  him,  he  had 
been  interested  in  the  Shakers,  had  half  whimsically  thought 
of  joining  them,  and  had  used  the  community  as  a  theme  in 
his  writing.  But  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  joined  the  move 
ment  now  as  a  practical,  and  in  that  sense  selfish,  experiment. 
From  his  salary  in  the  Custom-house  he  had  saved  a  thou 
sand  dollars;  he  invested  the  whole  sum  in  the  new  transcen 
dental  enterprise,  and  took  his  place  in  the  Brook  Farm  circle 
early  in  April,  1841. 

"The  Brook  Farm  Institute  of  Agriculture  and  Educa 
tion,"  at  Roxbury,  Massachusetts,  had  its  origin  in  the  circle 
of  the  Boston  Transcendentalists.  George  Ripley  and  W.  H. 
Channing  were  apparently  the  prime  movers  in  the  scheme 
to  establish  an  ideal  society,  where  the  earthly  distractions  of 
life  should  be  reduced  to  their  proper  minimum,  and  the  soul 
left  free  to  expand  in  the  new  philosophy.  Emerson  and  the 
older  Transcendentalists  discouraged  the  attempt,  but  Ripley 
persisted,  and  early  in  1841  bought  a  milk  farm  in  West  Rox 
bury,  and  organized  the  proposed  community  into  a  stock 
company.  At  first  fifty  thousand  dollars  was  the  capitaliza- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  221 

tion  spoken  of;  then  thirty  thousand;  and  finally  twenty-four 
shares,  of  five  hundred  dollars  each,  were  taken.  The  farm, 
one  hundred  and  seventy  acres  in  extent,  cost  ten  thousand 
five  hundred  dollars,  and  it  was  immediately  mortgaged  for 
six  thousand  dollars.  The  financing  of  the  enterprise  was 
somewhat  elaborate,  and  when  considered  in  all  its  details, 
appears  perplexingly  impractical.  The  humor  of  the  com 
munity's  history  begins  with  the  first  election  of  officers,  when 
Hawthorne,  who  had  invested  his  savings  in  two  shares, 
was  made  a  member  of  the  ''Direction  of  Finance";  per 
haps  the  humor  began  earlier,  in  the  selection,  for  agricul 
tural  purposes,  of  land  obviously  worn  out  and  fit  only  for 
pasture. 

The  Transcendentalists  rarely  understated  their  ideals. 
The  aim  of  Brook  Farm  was  "to  insure  a  more  natural  union 
between  intellectual  and  manual  labor  than  now  exists;  to 
combine  the  thinker  and  the  worker,  as  far  as  possible,  in  the 
same  individual;  to  guarantee  the  highest  mental  freedom,  by 
providing  all  with  labor  adapted  to  their  tastes  and  talents, 
and  securing  to  them  the  fruits  of  their  industry;  to  do  away 
with  the  necessity  of  menial  services  by  opening  the  benefits 
of  education  and  the  profits  of  labor  to  all;  and  thus  to  prepare 
a  society  of  liberal,  intelligent,  and  cultivated  persons,  whose 
relations  with  each  other  would  permit  a  more  wholesome  and 
simple  life  than  can  be  led  amidst  the  pressure  of  our  com 
petitive  institutions."  But  smile  as  one  will,  this  strange  ex 
periment  is  remembered  as  an  incident  in  enough  famous 
lives,  here  meeting  in  "The  House  of  the  Interpreter,"  "The 
Pilgrim  House,"  and  the  other  simple  buildings  with  fine 
nameSj  to  insure  the  immortality  of  Brook  Farm  in  American 
history.  Hither  came  Margaret  Fuller,  and  Charles  Dana, 
founder  of  the  New  York  Sun,  and  George  William  Curtis — 
perhaps  the  most  lovable  of  the  community;  and  less  enthusi 
astic,  but  destined  to  higher  fame,  came  Hawthorne. 


222  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

One  turns  to  his  note-books,  as  usual,  for  the  indelible 
sketches  of  his  daily  life. 

"Here  I  am,"  he  writes,  "in  a  polar  Paradise!  I  know  not 
how  to  interpret  this  aspect  of  nature, — whether  it  be  of  good 
or  evil  omen  to  our  enterprise.  But  I  reflect  that  the  Plymouth 
pilgrims  arrived  in  the  midst  of  storm,  and  stepped  ashore 
upon  mountain  snow-drifts;  and,  nevertheless,  they  prospered, 
and  became  a  great  people, — and  doubtless  it  will  be  the  same 
with  us.  I  laud  my  stars,  however,  that  you  will  not  have  your 
first  impressions  of  (perhaps)  our  future  home  from  such  a  day 
as  this.  .  .  .  Through  faith,  I  persist  in  believing  that  Spring 
and  Summer  will  come  in  their  due  season;  but  the  unre- 
generated  man  shivers  within  me,  and  suggests  a  doubt 
whether  I  may  not  have  wandered  within  the  precincts  of  the 
Arctic  Circle,  and  chosen  my  heritage  among  everlasting 
snows.  ...  I  have  not  yet  taken  my  first  lesson  in  agricul 
ture,  except  that  I  went  to  see  our  cows  foddered,  yesterday 
afternoon.  We  have  eight  of  our  own;  and  the  number  is 
now  increased  by  a  transcendental  heifer  belonging  to  Miss 
Margaret  Fuller.  She  is  very  fractious,  I  believe,  and  apt  to 
kick  over  the  milk-pail.  ...  I  intend  to  convert  myself  into 
a  milk-maid  this  evening,  but  I  pray  Heaven  that  Mr.  Ripley 
may  be  moved  to  assign  me  the  kindliest  cow  in  the  herd, 
otherwise  I  shall  perform  my  duty  with  fear  and  trembling. 

"Before  breakfast  I  went  out  to  the  barn  and  began  to 
chop  hay  for  the  cattle,  and  with  such  'righteous  vehemence/ 
as  Mr.  Ripley  says,  did  I  labor,  that  in  the  space  of  ten  min 
utes  I  broke  the  machine.  Then  I  brought  wood  and  re 
plenished  the  fires;  and  finally  went  down  to  breakfast,  and 
ate  up  a  huge  mound  of  buckwheat  cakes.  After  breakfast, 
Mr.  Ripley  put  a  four-pronged  instrument  into  my  hands, 
which  he  gave  me  to  understand  was  a  pitchfork;  and  he  and 
Mr.  Farley  being  armed  with  similar  weapons,  we  all  three 
commenced  a  gallant  attack  upon  a  heap  of  manure.  This 
office  being  concluded,  and  I  having  purified  myself,  I  sit 
down  to  finish  this  letter. 

"What  an  abominable  hand  do  I  scribble!  but  I  have  been 
chopping  wood  and  turning  a  grindstone  all  the  forenoon;  and 
such  occupations  are  likely  to  disturb  the  equilibrium  of  the 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  223 

muscles  and  sinews.  It  is  an  endless  surprise  to  me  how  much 
work  there  is  to  be  done  in  the  world;  but,  thank  God,  I 
am  able  to  do  my  share  of  it, — and  my  ability  increases 
daily.  ...  I  milked  two  cows  this  morning,  and  would  send 
you  some  of  the  milk,  only  that  it  is  mingled  with  that  which 
was  drawn  forth  by  Mr.  Dismal  View  and  the  rest  of  my 
brethren." 

There  is  something  strangely  amusing  in  the  faith  Haw 
thorne  had  in  this  new  work  of  his  hands;  perhaps  no  Ameri 
can,  not  even  Emerson,  was  less  adapted  for  a  routine  of  toil. 
Hawthorne's  reflective,  brooding  nature,  his  inheritance  from 
one  part  of  the  Puritan  temper,  led  him  in  the  very  midst  of 
his  barnyard  duties  to  wander  in  his  dream  world,  and  to  feel 
the  unreality  of  actual  things.  Not  a  day  went  by,  he  said, 
that  did  not  teach  him  how  facts  are  changed  in  their  passage 
through  the  human  mind,  until  truth  seems  a  fantasy,  never 
to  be  grasped.  He  found  amusement  in  the  comrade  who 
quoted  Latin  and  made  classical  allusions  while  turning  over 
the  manure-pile;  his  whole  residence  at  Brook  Farm  suggests 
the  same  incongruity.  Some  pathos  also  belongs  to  the  pic 
ture,  if  we  remember  how  often  in  his  career  Hawthorne 
yearned  for  an  actual,  hand-to-hand  grapple  with  life,  and 
how  all  his  attempts  disappointed  him  with  a  sense  that  his 
most  rugged  experiences — in  the  Custom-house,  at  Brook 
Farm,  in  the  Liverpool  Consulate — were  turned  into  phan 
toms  by  the  magic  of  his  self-analysis.  Even  had  the  Brook 
Farm  enterprise  succeeded  in  its  general  purpose,  it  would 
have  failed  for  Hawthorne;  for  as  soon  as  he  had  stored  up  the 
ideas  and  sensations  any  way  of  life  could  contribute,  that  way 
of  life  began  to  pall  upon  him,  and  he  longed  for  freedom. 
Early  in  May,  1841,  he  records  the  first  glimmering  of  discon 
tent,  when  he  writes  that  he  would  not  be  so  patient  if  he  were 
not  engaged  in  a  righteous  and  heavenly-blessed  way  of  life. 
But  a  slight  acquaintance  with  his  nature  is  enough  to  con- 


224  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

vince  us  that  he  would  not  long  be  patient  with  any  conven 
tion  for  such  purely  moral  reasons;  the  fact  that  he  mentions 
no  others  shows  that  the  experience  was  already  unproduc 
tive  in  spiritual  ways.  By  another  month  his  discontent  finds 
clear  expression.  "In  the  midst  of  toil,  or  after  a  hard  day's 
work  in  the  gold-mine,  my  soul  obstinately  refuses  to  be 
poured  out  on  paper.  That  abominable  gold-mine!  Thank 
God,  we  anticipate  getting  rid  of  its  treasures  in  the  course  of 
two  or  three  days !  Of  all  hateful  places  that  is  the  worst,  and 
I  shall  never  comfort  myself  for  having  spent  so  many  days  of 
blessed  sunshine  there.  It  is  my  opinion  that  a  man's  soul 
may  be  buried  and  perish  under  a  dung-heap,  or  in  a  furrow 
of  the  field,  just  as  well  as  under  a  pile  of  money." 

By  August  Hawthorne's  frame  of  mind  was  in  direct  con 
trast  with  all  his  first  hopes  of  the  Farm, — both  for  himself 
and  for  the  community.  "In  a  little  more  than  a  fortnight," 
he  wrote,  "I  shall  be  free  from  my  bondage, — free  to  enjoy 
Nature, — free  to  think  and  feel.  .  .  .  Even  my  Custom 
house  experience  was  not  such  a  thralldom  and  weariness;  my 
mind  and  heart  were  free.  Oh,  labor  is  the  curse  of  the  world, 
and  nobody  can  meddle  with  it  without  becoming  propor- 
tionably  brutified !  Is  it  a  praiseworthy  matter  that  I  have 
spent  five  golden  months  in  providing  food  for  cows  and 
horses?  It  is  not  so."  Later  in  the  same  month  he  writes 
Sophia  Peabody  that  they  must  no  longer  depend  upon  the 
Farm  for  their  hope  of  a  home;  it  was  extremely  doubtful 
whether  the  community  could  be  permanent.  During  a  visit 
to  his  home  in  Salem  in.  September  he  writes  of  the  past 
months  as  though  they  were  already  part  of  antiquity,  and 
describes  characteristically  the  illusion  they  had  become.  The 
words  might  be  applied  to  most  of  the  "practical"  passages 
in  his  life: 

"I  should  judge  it  to  be  twenty  years  since  I  left  Brook 
Farm;  and  this  I  take  to  be  one  proof  that  my  life  there  was 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  225 

an  unnatural  and  unsuitable,  and  therefore  an  unreal,  one. 
It  already  looks  like  a  dream  behind  me.  The  real  Me 
was  never  an  associate  of  the  community;  there  has  been  a 
spectral  Appearance  there,  sounding  the  horn  at  day  break, 
and  milking  the  cows,  and  hoeing  potatoes,  and  raking  hay, 
toiling  in  the  sun,  and  doing  me  the  honor  to  assume  my 
name.  But  this  spectre  was  not  myself.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
somewhat  remarkable  that  my  hands  have,  during  the  past 
summer,  grown  very  brown  and  rough,  insomuch  that  many 
people  persist  in  believing  that  I,  after  all,  was  the  aforesaid 
spectral  horn-sounder,  cow-milker,  potato-hoer,  and  hay- 
raker.  But  such  people  do  not  know  a  reality  from  a  shadow." 

Hawthorne  returned  to  Brook  Farm,  but  as  a  resident 
rather  than  worker,  and  with  the  conviction  that  this  second 
stay  was  only  temporary.  He  intended  to  use  his  new  leisure 
for  writing,  but  even  his  release  from  the  farm  labor  did  not 
give  him  the  solitude  his  genius  needed.  His  residence  at  the 
Farm  produced  at  the  time  only  one  book,  Biographical 
Stories  for  Children,  1842, — simply  told  lives  of  Benjamin 
West,  Isaac  Newton,  Samuel  Johnson,  Oliver  Cromwell, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  and  Queen  Christina;  one  story,  A  Vir 
tuoso's  Collection,  in  The  Boston  Miscellany,  May,  1842;  and 
the  enlarged  edition  of  Twice  Told  Tales,  in  the  same  year. 
The  best  that  Brook  Farm  had  done  for  his  genius  was  to 
give  it  material,  to  be  used  later;  at  the  moment,  Haw 
thorne  very  naturally  felt  that  his  time  there  had  been 
wasted. 

In  so  far  as  he  had  hoped  to  win  a  home  in  the  community, 
Hawthorne  had  worse  than  failed;  he  had  lost  even  the  few 
savings  with  which  he  began.  Having  practically  nothing 
left  but  his  slight  literary  prospects,  he  and  Sophia  now  made 
a  poet's  choice,  and  determined,  since  poor  they  were,  to  be 
poor  together.  They  found  a  home  that  promised  suitable 
privacy  in  the  Old  Manse,  at  Concord,  and  they  were  ac 
cordingly  married  on  July  9,  1842,  at  Boston. 


226  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

VI 

Hawthorne  has  described  the  Old  Manse  in  the  introduc 
tory  sketch  in  the  Mosses,  and  his  journal  gives  a  more  de 
tailed  record  of  his  life  in  the  house.  The  home,  so  secluded, 
so  steeped  in  the  past,  suited  his  genius  peculiarly;  perhaps 
none  of  his  later  homes  accommodated  themselves  so  fully  to 
the  way  of  life  his  temperament  desired.  Yet  for  that  very 
reason  the  residence  in  the  Old  Manse,  ideally  happy  in  his 
love  and  in  the  birth  of  his  first  child  Una,  on  March  3,  1844, 
was  not  very  profitable  to  Hawthorne  for  any  advance  in  his 
profession.  The  image  under  which  he  most  often  repre 
sented  his  new  joys,  the  original  Paradise,  was  true  in  this 
sense  also,  that  so  far  as  his  own  account  can  be  trusted  he 
did  very  little  work.  "  A  rainy  day, — a  rainy  day,"  he  writes. 
"I  am  commanded  to  take  my  pen  in  hand,  and  I  am  there 
fore  banished  to  the  little  ten-foot-square  apartment  mis 
named  my  study;  but  perhaps  the  dismalness  of  the  day  and 
the  dulness  of  my  solitude  will  be  the  prominent  characteris 
tics  of  what  I  write.  And  what  is  there  to  write  about  ?  Hap 
piness  has  no  succession  of  events,  because  it  is  a  part  of  eter 
nity;  and  we  have  been  living  in  eternity  ever  since  we  came  to 
this  old  manse."  It  is  no  cause  for  wonder  that  this  sense  of 
Eden  should  have  colored  Hawthorne's  thought  of  his  young 
home,  or  should  have  chained  his  energies  for  a  time;  quiet  as 
the  life  was,  so  that  the  unusual  caller  was  a  matter  for  hu 
morous  comment  in  the  journal,  these  were  rare  spirits  in  the 
neighborhood,  rare  enough  to  reduce  an  appreciative  mind 
to  a  state  of  inactive  wonder.  A  sense  of  these  privileges  is  in 
all  that  Hawthorne  writes  of  that  time,  and  he  generously  in 
cludes  the  few  less  important  in  the  glamor  he  sets  around  the 
great  ones.  George  Prescott  came  daily  "to  bring  three  pints 
of  milk  from  some  ambrosial  cow,"  and  sometimes  to  make 
an  offering  of  mortal  flowers;  Emerson  came  and  feasted  on 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  227 

the  household's  "nectar  and  ambrosia,  and  Thoreau  came  to 
hear  the  Hawthorne's  musical  box, — or  that  was  his  fate,  if 
not  his  purpose."  How  should  one  toil  at  writing,  if  one 
could  walk  out  of  an  August  afternoon  and  find  Margaret 
Fuller  reading  a  strange  book  under  the  trees,  where  pres 
ently  Emerson  also  would  appear,  wise  and  quaintly  hu 
morous,  to  say  that  there  were  Muses  in  the  woods  that  day, 
and  whispers  in  the  breeze ! 

Even  a  social  community  so  select  and  vague  as  that  which 
the  Hawthornes  may  be  said  to  have  made  their  own,  pre 
sented  at  times  embarrassing  problems.  At  the  very  begin 
ning  of  their  residence  in  the  Old  Manse  Margaret  Fuller  de 
termined  that  her  sister  and  brother-in-law,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Ellery  Channing,  should  board  in  the  novelist's  household. 
Hawthorne's  letter  declining  the  proposal  is  a  model  of  tact 
ful  self-assertion,  and  leaves  the  only  impression  of  energy, 
however  quiet,  that  one  can  rescue  from  this  period  of  his  life. 
Other  problems,  not  recorded,  must  have  been  met  with  simi 
lar  adroitness  and  effect,  for  the  remembrance  of  him  in  the 
neighborhood  was  entirely  pleasant — almost  affectionate. 

During  the  years  at  the  Old  Manse  Hawthorne  published 
many  of  the  stories  later  gathered  in  the  Mosses,  and  edited 
Bridge's  Journal  oj  an  African  Cruiser.  Practically  all  this 
writing  was  done  between  1843  an<^  I^45>  tne  nrst  vear  m 
Concord  had  been  quite  unfruitful.  As  the  time  went  on, 
Hawthorne  may  have  been  stirred  to  increasing  effort  by  the 
poverty  that  began  to  threaten  him  and  more  than  threaten. 
It  was  characteristic  of  him  that  he  should  work  under  pres 
sure,  and  the  failing  pocket-book  now  gave  pressure  enough  to 
rouse  even  a  more  lethargic  nature.  It  is  not  entirely  appar 
ent;  in  the  family  correspondence,  how  poor  the  Hawthornes 
\Ae  at  the  end  of  their  stay  in  the  Old  Manse,  for  Sophia, 
like  her  husband,  wrote  of  their  life  with  playful  cheerfulness. 
But  much  should  be  read  between  the  lines  of  her  account  of 


228  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

their  Christmas  housekeeping,  when  the  cook  was  in  Boston 
and  Hawthorne  did  the  work.  * '  He  rose  betimes  in  the  morn 
ings,  and  kindled  fires  in  the  kitchen  and  breakfastroom,  and 
by  the  time  I  came  down,  the  tea-kettle  boiled,  and  potatoes 
were  baked  and  rice  cooked,  and  my  lord  sat  with  a  book, 
superintending.  Just  imagine  that  superb  head  peeping  at 
the  rice  or  examining  the  potatoes  with  the  air  and  port  of  a 
monarch !  And  that  angelica  riso  on  his  face,  lifting  him  clean 
out  of  culinary  scenes  into  the  arc  of  the  gods.  .  .  .  On 
Christmas  day  we  had  a  truly  Paradisaical  dinner  of  pre 
served  quince  and  apple,  dates,  and  bread  and  cheese,  and 
milk." 

It  was  Hawthorne's  good  fortune,  or  more  properly,  it  was 
the  just  reward  of  his  genius  and  nature,  to  be  appreciated 
and  loyally  served  by  a  few  capable  friends.  Through  them 
he  had  been  called  to  Bancroft's  attention,  with  the  result  of 
the  appointment  in  the  Boston  Custom-house.  Now  one 
May  day  in  1845,  Horatio  Bridge,  affectionately  known  as  the 
"Admiral,"  and  Franklin  Pierce  made  a  visit  to  Hawthorne, 
and  gave  him,  as  his  wife  said,  solid  hope.  They  found  Haw 
thorne  in  the  shed,  hewing  wood,  and  brought  him  out  in  a 
triumphant  gale  of  boyish  spirits,  Pierce  with  his  arm  encir 
cling  the  novelist's  workman's  frock,  and  Bridge  dancing  and 
gesticulating  and  opening  his  round  eyes  "like  an  owl." 

In  the  following  summer  Bridge  organized  a  "  sailor  house- 
party"  at  his  quarters  at  Portsmouth  Navy  Yard,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  introducing  Hawthorne  to  other  friends  influential  in 
politics.  Pierce  was  there,  and  Senator  Atherton  of  New 
Hampshire,  and  Senator  Fairfield  of  Maine.  These  were  the 
important  guests,  and  Hawthorne's  charm  fell  upon  them  all. 
One  has  a  sense  of  something  not  quite  noble  in  Hawthorne's 
willingness  to  apply  thus  for  government  positions, — for  he 
must  have  understood  the  intention  of  his  friends.  But  love 
of  country,  strongly  as  he  felt  it  in  his  own  way,  never  took  the 


UNIVERSITY    J 

OF  / 

--,:  :    •;..;     -'"' 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  229 

form  of  jealous  scruple  with  him,  as  it  did  with  Cooper;  he 
never  felt  called  upon  to  defend  his  country  with  anything 
like  Cooper's  enthusiasm,  nor  indeed,  to  defend  it  at  all;  he 
accepted  politics  simply  as  a  natural  condition,  and  criticized 
politicians  like  ordinary  human  beings,  impartially,  without 
reference  to  the  system  that  made  them  as  they  were.  This 
attitude,  clearly  denned  in  the  foreign  note-books  and  in  the 
introduction  to  The  Scarlet  Letter,  adds  materially  to  the  popu 
lar  conception  of  the  bloodlessness  of  Hawthorne's  character; 
his  passive  acceptance  of  public  conditions  appears  to  be 
cynical,  or  at  least  very  far  from  the  attitude  his  countrymen 
expect  in  their  best  men.  But  the  explanation  lies  again  in 
that  inwardness  of  his  nature,  that  fixed  contemplation  of 
the  effects  of  life,  which  left  him  small  interest  in  life  itself. 
Hawthorne  is  habitually  jealous  of  the  power  of  his  office- 
holding  upon  his  soul;  when  he  sees  ignoble  symptoms  there, 
he  is  immediately  strenuous  in  his  wish  to  be  free;  until  his 
soul  is  so  touched,  he  is  indifferent  to  the  possibilities  of  out 
ward  things.  However  one-sided  this  frame  of  mind  may  be, 
it  is  capable  of  defense  on  its  own  grounds;  certainly  Haw 
thorne's  genius  justified  itself,  and  a  critical  method  that 
would  seek  to  hold  him  to  the  standards  that  would  measure 
Cooper,  will  give  only  vague  and  unsatisfactory  results. 

On  March  23,  1846,  Hawthorne  was  made  surveyor  of  the 
Salem  Custom-house,  at  a  salary  of  twelve  hundred  dollars, 
and  he  returned  to  his  boyhood  home.  So  confident  was  he 
of  the  appointment,  that  he  had  in  fact  returned  to  the  old 
house  the  previous  October.  During  the  four  years  that  he 
now  spent  in  Salem,  he  lived  first  in  the  Herbert  Street  home, 
with  his  mother  and  sisters,  and  then  as  the  larger  family 
proved  too  many,  he  removed  to  a  house  in  Chestnut  Street, 
and  still  later,  to  a  house  in  Mall  Street,  where  his  mother  and 
sisters  afterward  rejoined  him,  and  where  his  mother  died. 
In  1846  part  of  the  summer  and  autumn  were  spent  in  Boston, 


23° 


LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 


in  Carver  Street,  and  there  the  son,  Julian,  was  born.  In  a 
letter  a  year  later  Sophia  Hawthorne  describes  the  new  Mall 
Street  home;  the  account  indicates  the  change  in  the  environ 
ment  of  Hawthorne's  genius  since  he  first  left  the  somber 
dwelling  of  his  youth : 

"My  husband's  study  will  be  high  from  all  noise,  and  it 
will  be  totme  a  Paradise  of  Peace  to  think  of  him  alone  and 
still,  yet  within  my  reach.  He  has  now  lived  in  the  nursery  a 
year  without  a  chance  for  one  hour's  uninterrupted  musing, 
and  without  his  desk  being  once  opened!  He — the  heaven- 
gifted  Seer — to  spend  his  life  between  the  Custom-house  and 
the  nursery!  I  want  him  to  be  with  me,  not  because  he  must 
be,  but  only  when  he  is  just  in  the  mood  for  all  the  scenes  of 
Babydom.  In  the  evening  he  is  always  mine,  for  then  he 
never  wishes  to  write.  ...  It  will  be  very  pleasant  to  have 
Madame  Hawthorne  in  the  house.  Her  suite  of  rooms  is 
wholly  distinct  from  ours,  so  that  we  shall  only  meet  when  we 
choose  to  do  so.  There  are  very  few  people  in  the  world 
whom  I  should  like  or  would  consent  to  have  in  the  house  even 
in  this  way;  but  Madame  Hawthorne  is  so  uninterfering,  of  so 
much  delicacy,  that  I  shall  never  know  she  is  near  excepting 
when  I  wish  it;  and  she  has  so  much  kindness  and  sense  and 
spirit  that  she  will  be  a  great  resource  in  emergencies.  ...  I 
am  so  glad  to  win  her  out  of  that  Castle  Dismal,  and  from  the 
mysterious  chamber  into  which  no  mortal  ever  peeped,  till 
Una  was  born,  and  Julian,— for  they  alone  have  entered  the 
penetralia.  Into  that  chamber  the  sun  never  shines.  Into 
these  rooms  in  Mall  Street  it  blazes  without  stint." 

Hawthorne  took  up  his  duties  in  the  Custom-house  with 
more  than  the  pride  he  usually  felt  in  each  new  attempt  toward 
practical  service.  There  was  here,  in  addition,  a  family  tradi 
tion  to  inspire  him;  he  imagined  his  ancestors,  sturdy  and 
efficient  as  they  were,  beholding  with  satisfaction  their 
dreamer  descendant  as  he  took  his  place  in  their  line.  We 
have  his  feelings  in  his  own  words  in  the  sketch  of  the  Custom 
house  which  so  incongruously  prefaces  The  Scarlet  Letter. 
Certainly,  those  of  his  ghostly  great-grandsires  who  ques- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  231 

tioned  his  story-writing,  as  he  fancied,  and  judged  him  a  de 
generate,  no  more  serviceable  to  mankind  in  his  day  and  gen 
eration  than  a  fiddler, — must  have  approved  the  vigor  with 
which  he  seems  to  have  discharged  his  duties.  He  had  more 
leisure  than  at  the  Boston  Custom-house, — only  three  or  four 
hours  of  the  day  had  to  be  given  to  business;  but  in  that  time 
he  made  a  solid  impression  upon  his  comrades  of  his  ability, 
and  sometimes,  too,  of  his  strong  temper.  He  is  said  to  have 
been  "tempestuous"  when  aroused;  "What  in  God's  name 
have  you  sent  on  board  my  ship  as  an  inspector?"  asked  one 
captain  who  had  fled  up  the  wharf  and  taken  refuge  in  the 
office.  Much  humor  and  some  ill-nature  is  in  the  introduc 
tion  to  The  Scarlet  Letter;  it  is  easy  to  think  back  to  the  causes 
of  that  sharp  portrait  of  indolent,  official  life,  with  the  em 
phasis  on  its  meanness;  the  firm  hand  of  his  ancestors  and  the 
brooding  aloofness  of  his  own  nature  made  his  environment 
hardly  attractive,  for  all  his  temporary  pride  in  practical 
work. 

His  leisure  gave  Hawthorne  opportunity  to  come  out  of 
himself  and  mingle  more  with  the  society  that  experience  and 
his  wife's  good  influence  had  taught  him  to  like.  But  it  gave 
him  no  inspiration  to  write.  His  duties  each  day  prevented 
the  creative  mood.  It  was  not  long  before  he  realized  again 
the  disgust  with  actual  things,  taken  simply  as  facts,  which 
had  made  Brook  Farm  a  failure  for  him  spiritually  as  well  as 
financially,  and  which  earlier  had  made  Brook  Farm  seem  a 
land  of  promise  to  which  he  could  escape  from  the  Boston 
Custom-house.  After  he  had  extracted  by  the  alchemy  of  his 
genius,  the  inner  meaning  of  any  experience,  the  experience 
was  for  him  empty  and  lifeless,  and  his  nature  struggled  to  be 
unchained  from  it  as  from  a  corpse.  But  for  a  while,  at  least, 
his  new  existence  in  Salem  was  smooth  enough. 

Early  in  1846  the  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  had  been  pub 
lished  in  New  York.  The  volume  is  naturally  associated  with 


232  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  Twice  Told  Tales,  and  in  many  respects  it  represents  the 
same  stage  of  Hawthorne's  art.  The  contents  consist  of 
stories  and  sketches,  the  latter  bordering  always  upon  the 
essay,  and  the  former  rich  in  speculation  upon  the  chances 
and  possibilities  of  life.  In  these  later  stories,  too,  Haw 
thorne's  imagination,  as  his  critics  have  pointed  out,  busies 
itself  usually  with  a  physical  symbol,  very  clearly  defined  and 
treated  allegorically.  The  ready  examples  are  found  in  The 
Birthmark,  where  the  one  flaw  in  perfect  beauty  is  made  the 
necessary  condition  of  human  life,  and  in  Egotism;  Or  the 
Bosom  Serpent,  the  title  of  which  tells  the  story,  except  that 
the  bosom  serpent  is  killed  or  driven  out  by  the  entrance  of 
love  into  Roderick's  heart.  In  the  essays,  such  as  the  genial 
Fire  Worship,  there  is  the  pleasant  cheerfulness  of  the  earlier 
volume,  hardly  more  mature  or  in  any  way  altered,  and  cer 
tainly  no  less  delightful.  Some  indication  of  the  happiness  of 
the  past  few  years  might  be  suspected  in  this  essay,  so  full  of 
the  hearth,  or  in  The  New  Adam  and  Eve,  with  its  echo  of  the 
Hawthornes'  Concord  sentiment,  and  its  picture  of  perfect 
love;  but  this  allegory  was  conceived,  and  its  title  practically 
assigned  to  it,  in  1836.  Almost  all  the  Mosses  are  entered  in 
their  germ  around  that  year  in  Hawthorne's  note-book. 

Though  these  stories  belong  to  the  same  general  inspiration 
as  the  Twice  Told  Tales,  they  give  on  the  whole  a  different 
impression.  Most  obviously,  they  differ  in  a  greater  em 
phasis  upon  allegory,  and  a  slighter — indeed  negligible — in 
terest  in  history,  or  in  the  past  in  any  form.  Roger  Malvin's 
Burial  is  the  only  story  that  draws  even  remotely  upon  that 
source  of  romance.  And  in  the  allegorical  tendency  of  the  ma  - 
jority  of  the  pieces — The  Birthmark,  Rappaccini's  Daughter, 
Feathertop — the  interest  is  rather  experimental  than  didactic; 
Hawthorne  throws  life  into  certain  strange  combinations,  to 
see  what  will  come  of  them;  and  this  curiosity,  most  often 
deeply  philosophical,  is  spent  at  times  upon  mere  fancies  of 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  233 

juxtaposition,  as  in  The  Virtuoso1  s  Collection,  in  which,  to  use 
his  own  note  for  the  story,  he  pictures  ( '  an  imaginary  museum, 
containing  such  articles  as  Aaron's  rod,  the  petticoat  of  Gen 
eral  Harrison,  the  pistol  with  which  Benton  shot  Jackson — 
and  then  a  diorama,  consisting  of  political  or  other  scenes,  or 
done  in  wax-work."  Whatever  else  Hawthorne's  art  might 
become,  The  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  indicated  that  he  was 
to  be  a  kind  of  experimenter  with  life,  caring  less  for  the  out 
ward  established  order  of  experience  than  for  the  new  signifi 
cances  and  possibilities  of  the  soul.  At  the  same  time,  the  re 
serve  which  keeps*  his  personality  so  distant  from  his  work, 
takes  from  it  also  that  impression  of  passionate  ideal  search 
which  can  ennoble  the  experiments  of  philosopher  or  scien 
tist;  the  absence  of  emotion  from  Hawthorne's  curiosity  is  the 
main  excuse  for  judging  him,  as  his  recent  critics  have  judged, 
ineffectual  and  cold ;  and  that  absence  of  emotion  is  most  felt 
in  this  volume.  At  best,  the  curiosity  to  experiment  with  life 
is  pitiful,  in  The  Birthmark;  at  the  other  extreme,  in  Feather- 
top,  it  is  trifling. 

Since  these  allegorical  stories  are  devoted  so  largely  to 
spiritual  experiment,  it  is  not  surprising  that  their  genesis  is 
usually  in  an  idea,  rather  than  in  a  plot.  It  is  usually  con 
sidered  the  mark  of  a  true  story-teller  that  he  thinks  in  terms 
of  plot;  whether  or  not  we  must  infer  that  Hawthorne  was  no 
true  story-teller,  it  is  clear  from  entries  in  his  note-book  that 
the  experiment  was  the  thing  which  occurred  to  him,  and  the 
story  was  worked  out  to  convey  the  idea.  Some  illustration 
of  this  habit  of  mind  has  been  casually  given  already;  it  can 
hardly  be  made  too  clear.  ' '  A  hint  of  a  story,— some  incident 
which  should  bring  on  a  general  war;  and  the  chief  actor  in  the 
incident  to  have  something  corresponding  to  the  mischief  he 
had  caused;"  "  A  well-concerted  train  of  events  to  be  thrown 
into  confusion  by  some  misplaced  circumstance,  unsuspected 
till  the  catastrophe,  yet  exerting  its  influence  from  beginning 


234  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

to  end;"  "Cannon  transformed  to  church-bells;"  "Follow 
out  the  fantasy  of  a  man  taking  his  life  by  instalments,  in 
stead  of  at  one  payment, — say  ten  years  of  life  alternately 
with  ten  years  of  suspended  animation"— these  are  typical 
notes.  More  familiar,  because  of  their  later  form,  are  these: 
"A  snake  taken  into  a  man's  stomach  and  nourished  there 
from  fifteen  years  to  thirty-five,  tormenting  him  most  horribly. 
A  type  of  envy  or  some  evil  passion."  "The  semblance  of  a 
human  face  to  be  formed  on  the  side  of  a  mountain,  or  in  the 
fracture  of  a  small  stone,  by  a  lusus  natures.  The  face  is  an 
object  of  curiosity  for  years  or  centuries,  and  by  and  by  a  boy 
is  born,  whose  features  gradually  assume  the  aspect  of  that 
portrait.  At  some  critical  juncture,  the  resemblance  is  found 
to  be  perfect.  A  prophecy  may  be  connected."  "A  person 
to  be  the  death  of  his  beloved  in  trying  to  raise  her  to  more 
than  mortal  perfection;  yet  this  should  be  a  comfort  to  him 
for  having  aimed  so  highly  and  holily."  Among  these  notes 
is  the  brief  anecdote  of  the  lovers  of  Acadia,  which  in  Long 
fellow's  hands  became  Evangeline;  and  one  final  illustration, 
with  a  richness  of  suggestion  that  elaboration  could  hardly 
have  increased,  deserves  to  be  remembered  among  Haw 
thorne's  most  typical  work, — "A  person  to  be  writing  a  tale, 
and  to  find  that  it  shapes  itself  against  his  intentions;  that  the 
characters  act  otherwise  than  he  thought;  that  unforeseen 
events  occur;  and  a  catastrophe  comes  which  he  strives  in 
vain  to  avert.  It  might  shadow  forth  his  own  fate, — he  hav 
ing  made  himself  one  of  the  personages." 

To  whatever  degree  Hawthorne's  predisposition  toward 
allegory  may  have  injured  his  longer  romances,  when  com 
bined  with  other  narrative  elements,  certainly  in  the  Mosses 
he  attains  to  almost  unique  skill  in  this  kind  of  writing.  Per 
haps  no  other  modern  writer  has  managed  to  indicate  so 
much  of  the  soul's  deeper  experiences  through  this  medium, 
which  still  is  strange  and  artificial  to  the  race,  for  all  its  fa- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  235 

miliarity  with  sacred  parables.  Hawthorne's  matchless  sense 
of  "  keeping,"  the  gift  that  distinguishes  all  of  his  tales,  serves 
to  make  his  allegory  understandable  by  rejecting  every  note 
that  is  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the  combined  fable  and  inner 
meaning.  This  praise,  however,  can  be  given  only  to  his  short 
allegories;  in  the  longer  romances  his  parable  is  at  times 
pressed  far,  and  confused.  And  his  undoubted  gift  for  pure 
story-telling  aids  the  allegory  immensely,  as  a  similar  gift 
aided  Bunyan,  by  finding  for  the  germ  idea  a  dress  always  of 
quaint  interest,  and  often  of  surprising  ingenuity.  The  rela 
tion  between  The  Birthmark,  complete  and  inevitable  as  it 
seems  in  the  fitness  of  its  plot,  and  the  original  note  for  it, 
when  the  outward  circumstances  of  that  plot  were  unthought 
of,  is  a  matter  for  study  and  wonder.  Surely  that  acquaint 
ance  with  the  actual  must  have  been  amazingly  large,  from 
which  Hawthorne  could  take  a  series  of  incidents  inevitably 
in  such  a  high  state  of  selection. 

In  only  two  pieces  is  the  allegorical  content  submerged  to 
the  point  where  the  narrative  becomes  truly  a  story,  but  in 
Roger  Malviri's  Burial  and  Rappaccini's  Daughter  Haw 
thorne's  genius  in  story-telling  has  supreme  examples.  The 
first  is  set  in  the  early  frontier  history  of  New  England,  and 
belongs  to  the  class  of  tales  of  which  the  Gray  Champion 
came  first.  The  allegorical  method  is  laid  aside  for  once,  and 
the  theme  of  fate  is  substituted.  The  youth  who  promises  to 
return  to  bury  his  dead  father-in-law,  and  fails  to  keep  his 
word,  at  last  expiates  his  neglect  by  the  unintentional  murder 
)f  his  own  child  on  that  very  spot.  This  fatalistic  avenging 
of  sin  is  as  much  in  the  web  of  Hawthorne's  mind  as  the  alle 
gorical  method  is  in  his  art;  but  the  reader  finds  a  main  in 
terest  in  the  change  of  Reuben's  character,  as  his  conscious- 
s  ness  of  guilt  pursues  him.  Hawthorne  conies  to  his  own  in 
the  theme  of  the  secret  sin  that  was  to  pursue  the  young  warrior 
to  a  ghastly  expiation;  the  story  is  among  the  most  powerful 


236  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

he  wrote,  since  it  was  such  a  hard  choice  to  leave  Roger  Mai- 
vin  to  a  lonely  death,  or  to  throw  away  youth  and  life  in  a  use 
less  effort  to  comfort  him;  once  the  wrong  choice  is  made,  the 
theme  of  fate  shadows  the  story  irresistibly.  Here  is  the  very 
heart  of  the  gloom  which  Hawthorne  finds  characteristic  in 
human  nature— wrong  judgment,  turning  into  secret  sin. 

"  There  was  now  in  the  breast  of  Reuben  Bourne  an  incom 
municable  thought — something  he  was  to  conceal  most  heed- 
fully  from  her  whom  he  most  loved  and  trusted.  He  regretted, 
deeply  and  bitterly,  the  moral  cowardice  that  had  restrained 
his  words  when  he  was  about  to  disclose  the  truth  to  Dorcas; 
but  pride,  the  fear  of  losing  her  affection,  the  dread  of  univer 
sal  scorn,  forbade  him  to  rectify  this  falsehood.  He  felt  that 
for  leaving  Roger  Malvin  he  deserved  no  censure.  His  pres 
ence,  the  gratuitous  sacrifice  of  his  own  life,  would  have  added 
only  another  and  a  needless  agony  to  the  last  moments  of  the 
dying  man;  but  concealment  had  imparted  to  a  justifiable 
act  much  of  the  secret  effect  of  guilt;  and  Reuben,  while  rea 
son  told  him  that  he  had  done  right,  experienced  in  no  small 
degree  the  mental  horrors  which  punish  the  perpetrator  of 
undiscovered  crime.  By  a  certain  association  of  ideas,  he  at 
times  almost  imagined  himself  a  murderer.  For  years,  also,  a 
thought  would  occasionally  recur,  which,  though  he  per 
ceived  all  its  folly  and  extravagance,  he  had  not  the  power  to 
banish  from  his  mind.  It  was  a  haunting  and  torturing  fancy 
that  his  father-in-law  was  yet  sitting  at  the  foot  of  the  rock, 
on  the  withered  forest  leaves,  alive,  and  awaiting  his  pledged 
assistance." 

Roger  Malmri's  Burial  is  the  most  powerful  story,  morally, 
of  the  Mosses  jrom  an  Old  Manse,  but  Rappaccini's  Daughter 
is  more  characteristic  of  the  volume,  and  perhaps  of  Haw 
thorne's  genius.  The  plot  is  subtly  allegorical,  and  deals 
with  one  of  those  experiments  with  strange  possibilities  of 
life  which  have  been  considered  before.  The  story  is  remark 
able  chiefly,  perhaps,  because  of  the  perfect  skill  necessary 
to  make  such  a  fanciful  adventure  seem  real.  Hawthorne 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  237 

had  transcribed  in  his  note-book  from  Burton's  Anatomy  o] 
Melancholy  the  account  of  the  woman,  fed  on  poisons,  who 
had  been  sent  to  Alexander  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  him. 
The  story  is  removed  into  that  cold  realm  of  thought  in  which 
Hawthorne's  allegories  so  often  flourish,  by  the  change  of  the 
motive  from  passion  for  revenge  upon  a  usurping  conqueror, 
to  mere  scientific  curiosity;  Rappaccini  feeds  his  daughter  on 
poisons  simply  to  watch  the  result.  And  the  allegorical  bent 
is  given  to  the  tale  by  the  fatal  effect  of  the  antidote;  Beatrice 
has  fed  on  poisons  so  long  that  the  wholesome  drug  kills  her. 
If  we  add  that  the  antidote,  and  consequently  the  death  of 
Beatrice,  is  procured  by  Doctor  Baglioni  out  of  professional 
jealousy,  we  have  enumerated  the  simple  elements  of  the 
story.  But  its  power  is  in  the  subtle  skill  that  paints  the  poi 
sonous  influence  as  a  thing  of  tropical,  if  baneful,  beauty, — 
that  makes  Beatrice  seem  the  natural  kindred  of  the  terrible 
flower,  fed  with  no  grosser  nourishment  than  its  fragrance; 
the  same  skill  keeps  before  us  the  sinister,  intellectual  face  of 
Rappaccini  among  the  passionate  flowers,  incarnate  evil  be 
traying  the  impulses  of  life.  To  set  Beatrice  in  her  garden, 
where  the  poison  flower  explains  and  prepares  for  the  dis 
closure  of  her  nature,  is  the  device  of  genius. 

What,  more  than  anything  else,  gives  all  the  stories  in  the 
volume  their  weight,  whether  they  are  allegorical  or  not,  is 
Hawthorne's  insistence  upon  the  two  themes  of  fate  and  sin. 
How  sin  enters  a  life  unawares,  or  how  the  mere  sight  of  it 
contaminates,  or,  in  the  lighter  sketches,  how  untruth  in  some 
form  masquerades  and  gives  impress  to  the  lives  it  crosses — 
one  of  these  subjects  is  almost  sure  to  enter  each  tale;  and 
in  each,  the  inexorable  consequence  of  sin  or  error  is  por 
trayed  with  a  depth  that  makes  even  the  most  fanciful  alle 
gory  grip  the  attention.  The  darkest  version  of  this  fate  is  in 
~Young  Goodman  Brown,  where  the  dream  of  the  devil's 
orgies  blights  every  waking  moment  thereafter,  making  Good- 


238  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

man  Brown  a  sad,  a  darkly  meditative,  a  distrustful,  if  not  a 
desperate  man.  But  it  is  in  the  other  stories  too,  as  the  pass 
ing  illustrations  will  have  shown,  and  it  is  near  the  center  of 
Hawthorne's  philosophy.  Few  readers  will  not  follow  such  a 
theme  with  human  interest,  whether  or  not  they  regret  its 
gloom;  and  this  human  interest  justifies  the  allegorical  fabric 
of  the  tales,  which  otherwise  might  easily  be  fanciful  and  in 
effective.  With  the  Mosses  Hawthorne  had  finished  his  ap 
prenticeship;  he  had  mastered  a  few  great  themes,  and  ac 
quired  practically  flawless  skill  in  treating  them,  and  through 
theme  and  technic  both,  he  had  learned  to  express  his  own 
character.  The  apparently  unproductive  years  in  the  Salem 
Custom-house  were  to  prove  but  a  resting  spell  before  the 

creation  of  his  masterpiece. 

^41 

VII 

Hawthorne  wrote  practically  nothing  during  this  residence 
at  Salem  until  November,  1847,  when  he  began  to  write  every 
day.  The  results  of  this  industry  were  a  few  more  short 
stories,  in  the  general  vein  of  the  Tales  and  the  Mosses, — The 
Snow  Image,  the  Great  Stone  Face,  Main  Street,  and  perhaps 
Ethan  Brand,  if  a  reference  in  a  letter  from  Sophia  Haw 
thorne,  in  1848,  may  be  taken  to  describe  this  tragic  study. 
The  stories  were  gathered  in  a  volume  entitled  The  Snow 
Image  and  Other  Twice  Told  Tales,  and  published  in  Boston 
in  1852.  But  this  was  all  Hawthorne  wrote  till  1849. 

In  June  of  that  year,  with  a  change  of  administration,  he 
was  naturally  dismissed  from  office.  His  disappointment — 
for  he  had  apparently  hoped  to  remain — was  increased  by  a 
charge  that  he  had  used  his  position  for  political  partisanship. 
His  indifference  to  all  politics  ought  to  have  acquitted  him 
rather  easily,  but  a  useless  controversy  followed,  with  the 
effect  of  making  him  thoroughly  detest  his  native  city.  For 
that  feeling  it  has  been  shown  he  was  much  to  blame.  Salem 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  239 

would  doubtless  have  honored  him  if  he  had  allowed  it  the 
privilege;  but  though  he  had  come  out  of  himself  more  than 
in  his  youth,  he  had  managed  to  keep  his  character  and  tem 
perament  largely  unknown. 

To  other  causes  of  annoyance  was  now  added  the  practical 
question  of  supporting  his  family.  The  salary  at  the  Custom 
house  had  been  sufficient  to  clear  him  of  old  debts,  but  he  had 
saved  nothing.  If  it  had  not  been  for  this  poverty,  he  would 
have  received  his  new  freedom  with  unmixed  joy,  for  his 
spirit  was  weary  enough  of  bread-and-butter  routine.  He 
wrote  to  a  friend,  asking  for  literary  employment;  evidently 
he  hoped  once  more  to  support  himself  with  his  pen.  The 
manner,  however,  in  which  his  wife  received  the  news  of  his 
dismissal,  gave  a  definite  direction  to  his  plans.  He  came 
home  earlier  than  usual,  the  day  he  lost  his  office,  and  Mrs. 
Hawthorne,  on  learning  the  cause,  exclaimed,  "Oh,  then  you 
can  write  your  book!"  Hawthorne  felt  quite  unable  to  share 
her  pleasure  in  the  opportune  leisure,  not  knowing  how  he 
could  support  his  family  till  the  book  was  done;  but  his  wife, 
without  his  knowledge,  had  saved  up  a  considerable  sum  out 
of  her  household  money,  and  now  brought  forth  this  faery 
hoard  from  the  drawer  of  her  desk.  That  afternoon  Haw 
thorne  began  The  Scarlet  Letter. 

The  romance  was  written  in  circumstances  of  extreme  sor 
row.  In  July,  1849,  Madam  Hawthorne,  who  was  then  liv 
ing  with  her  son,  began  to  fail  rapidly,  and  it  was  soon  appar 
ent  that  her  end  was  near.  The  care  of  nursing  her,  for  some 
reason,  fell  not  upon  her  daughters,  but  upon  Sophia  Haw 
thorne,  and  Hawthorne  himself  was  distracted  from  his  book 
by  many  simple  household  cares.  What  was  in  his  mind  at 
the  time  is  recorded  in  the  journal,  to  which  he  had  recourse 
as  an  outlet  of  personal  feelings  not  to  be  expressed  in  a  less 
intimate  way.  His  account  of  his  mother's  death-bed  has  been 
quoted ;  the  journal  pictures  in  still  greater  detail  the  travesty 


24o  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

on  that  solemn  scene,  played  by  Una  and  Julian  in  their 
childish  game:  "  Julian  is  now  lying  on  his  couch  in  the  char 
acter  of  sick  grandmamma,  while  Una  waits  on  him  as  Mrs. 
Dike.  She  prompts  him  in  the  performance,  showing  a  quite 
perfect  knowledge  of  how  it  should  all  be:  'Now,  stretch 
out  your  hands  to  be  held.'  'Will  you  have  some  of  this 
jelly?'  Julian  starts  up  to  take  the  imaginary  jelly.  'No; 
grandmamma  lies  still.'  He  smacks  his  lips.  '  You  must  not 
move  your  lips  so  hard.'  '  Do  you  think  Una  had  better  come 
up  ? '  '  No.'  '  You  feel  so,  don't  you  ? '  His  round  curly  head 
and  rosy  face,  with  a  twinkling  smile  upon  it,  do  not  look  the 
character  very  well.  Now  Una  is  transformed  into  grand 
mamma,  and  Julian  is  mamma,  taking  care  of  her.  She 
groans,  and  speaks  with  difficulty,  and  moves  herself  feebly 
and  wearisomely;  then  lies  perfectly  still,  as  if  in  an  insen 
sible  state;  then  rouses  herself  and  calls  for  wine;  then  lies 
down  on  her  back  with  clasped  hands;  then  puts  them  to  her 
head.  It  recalls  the  scene  of  yesterday  with  frightful  dis 
tinctness;  and  out  of  the  midst  of  it  little  Una  looks  at  me 
with  a  smile  of  glee." 

Hawthorne's  mother  died  on  the  last  day  of  July.  As  the 
care  of  his  two  sisters  devolved  upon  Hawthorne,  he  and  his 
wife  began  to  plan  immediately  to  leave  Salem  for  a  more 
economical  and  less  sad-memoried  home.  The  change  was 
not  made,  however,  until  the  next  year.  Hawthorne  worked 
industriously  at  his  romance, — nine  hours  a  day,  if  we  may 
take  seriously  a  remark  in  one  of  his  wife's  letters;  and  his 
wife  took  to  her  painting  again,  evidently  with  an  idea  of  add 
ing  to  their  diminishing  funds.  But  it  was  quite  impossible 
to  make  up  in  any  such  way  the  heavy  expenses  of  the  sum 
mer,  and  Hawthorne  was  in  a  situation  of  very  real  embar 
rassment,  when  in  January,  1850,  a  tactful  letter  from  his 
friend  Hillard  brought  a  check  for  a  most  convenient  amount, 
contributed  by  anonymous  friends.  "I  know  the  sensitive 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  241 

edge  of  your  temperament,"  wrote  Hillard,  "but  do  not  speak 
or  think  of  obligation.  It  is  only  paying,  in  a  very  imperfect 
measure,  the  debt  we  owe  you  for  what  you  have  done  for 
American  Literature."  Hawthorne's  reply  is  not  that  of  a 
dreamer;  but  of  a  proud  man  deeply  humiliated  by  misfor 
tune,  yet  sincerely  grateful.  It  was  a  dark  moment  when  he 
wrote,  "It  is  something  else  besides  pride  that  teaches  me 
that  ill-success  in  life  is  really  and  justly  a  matter  of  shame. 
I  am  ashamed  of  it,  and  I  ought  to  be.  The  fault  of  a  failure 
is  attributable — in  a  great  degree  at  least — to  the  man  who 
fails.  I  should  apply  this  truth  in  judging  of  other  men;  and 
it  behooves  me  not  to  shun  its  point  or  edge  in  taking  it  home 
to  my  own  heart.  Nobody  has  a  right  to  live  in  the  world  un 
less  he  be  strong  and  able,  and  applies  his  ability  to  good 
purpose."  A  little  less  than  three  years  later  Hawthorne  was 
able  to  return  the  money  to  Hillard  with  interest ;  it  is  easy  'to 
imagine  the  satisfaction  with  which  the  second  letter  was 
written,  after  so  short  an  interval,  but  with  the  consciousness 
that  his  family  were  secure  from  risk  of  poverty.  "This  act 
of  kindness,"  he  writes,  "did  me  an  unspeakable  amount  of 
good;  for  it  came  when  I  most  needed  to  be  assured  that  any 
body  thought  it  worth  while  to  keep  me  from  sinking.  And 
it  did  me  even  greater  good  than  this,  in  making  me  sensible 
of  the  need  of  sterner  efforts  than  my  former  ones,  in  order  to 
establish  a  right  for  myself  to  live  and  be  comfortable." 

Four  days  after  the  receipt  of  Hillard 's  gift,  The  Scarlet 
Letter  was  finished.  So  much  has  been  recorded  of  the  cir 
cumstances  in  which  the  book  was  written  and  found  its  way 
to  publication,  that  its  history  can  best  be  told  in  quotation. 
Hawthorne  himself  tells  how  he  read  the  last  pages  to  his 
wife,  the  day  he  wrote  them,  and  how  he  broke  down,  through 
sheer  nervous  excitement  after  the  severe  task  of  composi 
tion.  As  to  his  wife,  "It  broke  her  heart,  and  sent  her  to  bed 
with  a  grievous  headache,  which  I  look  upon  as  a  tremendous 


242  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

success."  The  most  striking  memory  of  the  book,  however, 
is  the  account  given  by  James  T.  Fields,  telling  how  he  came, 
in  a  way  that  seems  curiously  fated,  to  be  its  publisher. 

"In  the  winter  of  1849,  after  he  had  been  ejected  from  the 
Custom-house,  I  went  down  to  Salem  to  see  him  and  inquire 
after  his  health,  for  we  heard  he  had  been  suffering  from  ill 
ness.  He  was  then  living  in  a  modest  wooden  house  in  Mall 
Street,  if  I  remember  rightly  the  location.  I  found  him  alone 
in  a  chamber  over  the  sitting-room  of  the  dwelling;  and  as  the 
day  was  cold,  he  v/as  hovering  near  a  stove.  We  fell  into  talk 
about  his  future  prospects,  and  he  was,  as  I  feared  I  should 
find  him,  in  a  very  desponding  mood.  'Now,'  said  I,  'is  the 
time  for  you  to  publish,  for  I  know  during  these  years  in 
Salem  you  must  have  got  something  ready  for  the  press.' 
'Nonsense,'  said  he;  'what  heart  had  I  to  write  anything, 
when  my  publishers  (M.  &  Company)  have  been  so  many 
years  trying  to  sell  a  small  edition  of  the  Twice  Told  Tales  ? ' 
I  still  pressed  upon  him  the  good  chances  he  would  have  now 
with  something  new.  'Who  would  risk  publishing  a  book  for 
me,  the  most  unpopular  writer  in  America?'  'I  would,'  said 
I,  '  and  would  start  with  an  edition  of  two  thousand  copies  of 
anything  you  write.'  'What  madness!'  he  exclaimed;  'your 
friendship  for  me  gets  the  better  of  your  judgment.  No,  no,' 
he  continued;  'I  have  no  money  to  indemnify  a  publisher's 
losses  on  my  account.'  I  looked  at  my  watch  and  found  that 
the  train  would  soon  be  starting  for  Boston,  and  I  knew  there 
was  not  much  time  to  lose  in  trying  to  discover  what  had  been 
his  literary  work  during  these  last  few  years  at  Salem.  I  re 
member  that  I  pressed  him  to  reveal  to  me  what  he  had  been 
writing.  He  shook  his  head  and  gave  rne  to  understand  he 
had  produced  nothing.  At  that  moment  I  caught  sight  of  a 
bureau  or  set  of  drawers  near  where  we  were  sitting;  and  im 
mediately  it  occurred  to  me  that  hidden  away  somewhere  in 
that  article  of  furniture  was  a  story  or  stories  by  the  author  of 
Twice  Told  Tales,  and  I  became  so  positive  of  it  that  I  charged 
him  vehemently  with  the  fact.  He  seemed  surprised,  I 
thought,  but  shook  his  head  again;  and  I  rose  to  take  my 
leave,  begging  him  not  to  come  into  the  cold  entry,  saying  I 
would  come  back  and  see  him  again  in  a  few  days.  I  was 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  243 

hurrying  down  the  stairs  when  he  called  after  me  from  the 
chamber,  asking  me  to  stop  a  moment.  Th^:n.  quickly  step 
ping  into  the  entry  with  a  roll  of  manuscript  in  iiis  hands,  he 
said:  'How  in  Heaven's  name  did  you  know  this  thing  was 
there  ?  As  you  have  found  me  out,  take  what  I  have  written, 
and  tell  me,  after  you  get  home  and  have  time  to  read  it,  if  it 
is  good  for  anything.  It  is  either  very  good  or  very  bad, — I 
don't  know  which.'  On  my  way  up  to  Boston  I  read  the 
germ  of  The  Scarlet  Letter;  before  I  slept  that  night  I  wrote 
him  a  note  all  aglow  with  admiration  of  the  marvelous  story 
he  had  put  into  my  hands,  and  told  him  that  I  would  come 
again  to  Salem  the  next  day  and  arrange  for  its  publication." 

Hawthorne  had  intended  to  include  in  the  volume  with  his 
not  very  lengthy  romance  several  other  stories,  which  he  after 
ward  published  in  The  Snow  Image.  By  itself  The  Scarlet 
Letter,  he  thought,  was  too  somber,  and  he  feared  to  stake  the 
book  entirely  on  that  one  chance.  But  his  publisher's  keen 
judgment  was  for  putting  out  the  great  story  on  its  own  merits, 
and  so  complete  was  his  confidence  that  he  made  the  first 
edition  five  thousand  instead  of  two.  It  was  put  on  sale  in 
April,  1850,  and  a  second  edition  was  at  once  called  for. 

Much  of  the  material  and  the  method  of  The  Scarlet  Letter 
is  but  developed  from  the  Twice  Told  Tales.  The  main  idea, 
which  gives  the  book  its  title,  had  in  fact  been  sketched  in  the 
description  of  the  public  square  in  Endicott  and  The  Red 
Cross.  Among  the  other  citizens  in  that  picture  Hawthorne 
had  described  a  young  woman  "whose  doom  it  was  to  wear 
the  letter  A  on  the  breast  of  her  gown,  in  the  eyes  of  all  the 
world  and  her  own  children.  And  even  her  own  children 
knew  what  that  initial  signified.  Sporting  with  her  infamy, 
the  lost  and  desperate  creature  had  embroidered  the  fatal 
token  in  scarlet  cloth,  with  golden  thread,  and  the  nicest  art 
of  needlework;  so  that  the  capital  A  might  have  been  thought 
to  mean  Admirable,  or  anything  rather  than  Adulteress."  In 
using  a  symbol  as  the  starting  point  of  his  theme,  as  a  physi- 


244  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

cal  design  to  be  developed  and  played  with  by  his  imagina 
tion,  Hawthorne  simply  continued  the  method  of  the  earlier 
story,  or  of  The  Birthmark,  or  of  Lady  Eleanor's  Mantle.  So 
in  portraying  the  social  conditions  of  early  New  England  he 
continued  that  interest  in  history  which  was  a  prime  motive 
with  him.  Just  as  the  Twice  Told  Tales  contain  the  solidest 
material  of  his  shorter  work,  so  The  Scarlet  Letter  has  in  every 
sense  a  basis  in  reality  that  none  other  of  his  longer  romances 
approached.  Both  the  environment,  the  setting  of  the  story, 
and  the  allegorical  symbol,  are  felt  to  be  historical,  and  the 
truths  which  the  book  teaches  effectively  are  not  allegorized 
on  the  surface  of  the  tale,  but  are  implicit  in  its  heart,  as  in 
life  itself.  For  this  reason  the  one  artistic  blemish  of  the  book 
has  been  located  in  the  scene  where  the  meteoric  lights  frame 
a  scarlet  A  in  the  heavens.  So  absolute  is  the  reality  of  the 
book,  that  this  fanciful  symbolizing  of  the  minister's  con 
science  is  resented;  in  one  of  Hawthorne's  lighter  studies  it 
would  have  passed  unnoticed. 

The  greatness  of  the  story  lies  in  its  universal  theme,  its 
elevated  tone,  and  the  extreme  simplicity  of  its  treatment. 
The  theme  is  the  effect  of  sin  upon  the  soul  that  commits  it — 
especially  of  secret  sin,  since  Dimmesdale's  experience  makes 
the  tale.  All  the  characters  are  noble,  as  in  a  Greek  story — 
strongly  developed  in  themselves,  and  holding  high  position 
in  the  community,  so  that  their  experiences  are  large  and  im 
portant,  as  many  critics  have  remarked,  like  the  heroic  ad 
venture  of  Attic  tragedy.  This  resemblance  of  tone  is  in 
creased  by  the  sense  of  destiny  and  retribution  in  the  romance, 
dark  and  inexorable  as  ever  the  will  of  the  gods  was  imagined 
by  ancient  poets.  And  in  construction  the  story  is  the  simplest 
and  most  closely  knit  that  Hawthorne,  or  perhaps  American 
literature,  produced.  The  plot  needs  for  its  strictest  purposes 
but  three  characters — the  lover,  the  wife,  and  the  injured 
husband  who  determines  to  find  the  lover  and  force  him  to 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  245 

confess  his  guilt.  Pearl  gives  meaning  to  the  story;  she  serves, 
as  Hawthorne  is  careful  to  tell  us,  to  embody  the  scarlet 
letter,  all  its  torture  and  mercy;  she  serves  also  to  represent 
Hester's  own  youth,  and  so  explains  the  mother's  history  by 
repeating  the  character  in  that  first  passionate  form  which 
otherwise  we  should  not  see.  We  take  it  for  granted  that  she 
inherits  her  mother  rather  than  her  father,  except  for  the 
faery  daintiness  of  appearance  and  manner,  which  might 
have  belonged  to  the  minister  when  he  was  a  boy.  And  these 
three  main  characters  are  studied  with  a  single  intensity  that 
excludes  any  other  interests;  the  tale  indeed  " keeps  close  to 
its  point,"  as  Hawthorne  said. 

From  The  Scarlet  Letter  Hawthorne's  cold  experimental 
mood  is  completely  absent,  and  in  its  place  is  an  interest  in 
life,  which,  though  outwardly  restrained,  is  truly  passionate. 
It  is  usual,  perhaps,  to  attribute  the  study  of  sin  to  the  Puritan 
temperament,  but  it  takes  only  a  little  perception  to  see  that 
the  attitude  in  this  romance  cannot  easily  be  matched  in 
Spenser  or  Milton  or  Bunyan,  nor  in  what  we  know  of  the 
New  England  Puritans.  The  issue  of  sin,  here  represented, 
is  so  absolute  and  so  dark,  so  far  from  the  hope  of  forgiveness, 
that  the  Puritan  himself  rejects  its  harsh  fatality;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  the  value  placed  upon  life  is  here  so  strong,  and 
the  sympathy  with  human  desires  is  so  overwhelming,  that 
much  which  the  Puritan  would  condemn  as  sin  gets  away 
from  rigid  categories,  and  stands  in  a  troublesome  compro 
mise  between  right  and  wrong.  Both  of  these  variations  from 
the  Puritan  ideal  are,  of  course,  the  gift  of  Hawthorne's  own 
personality.  He  was  a  fatalist  at  heart,  and  the  power  of  evil 
to  breed  evil  had  occupied  his  thoughts.  He  was  naturally 
impressed,  also,  by  the  difficulty  of  judging  sin  by  conven 
tional  standards;  he  knew,  as  he  had  written  of  the  slave- 
trade,  that  what  one  age  thought  evil,  the  next  might  pass  by, 
if  not  approve,  and  for  those  sins  which  spring  from  the  best 


246  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

impulses  of  the  heart,  he  had  a  leniency  that  could  not  be 
found  even  in  Mrs.  Stowe's  work,  cheerful  Puritan  as  she  wasi 
The  sin  in  The  Scarlet  Letter  is  Dimmesdale's  cowardice  in 
refusing  to  acknowledge  the  child,  and  Chillingworth's  re 
vengeful  determination,  first  to  discover  Pearl's  father,  and 
then — as  he  grows  more  fiend-like — to  kill  that  father's  soul. 
The  sin  for  which  Hester  is  punished  is  hardly  presented  as 
sin  at  all.  The  wrong  of  it  is  balanced  in  the  story  by  the 
cruel,  loveless  marriage  Chillingworth  had  imposed  upon  her 
youth,  in  comparison  with  which  her  love  for  Dimmesdale 
seems  heaven-sent.  If  that  love  is  sin,  the  story,  true  to  life, 
presents  the  difficult  paradox  of  sin  ennobling  a  soul,  for 
through  her  love  of  Pearl  and  her  self -forgetting  pity  for  Dim 
mesdale  Hester's  soul  is  unquestionably  ennobled.  But  in  the 
critical  moment  when  the  minister  learns  that  his  tormenting 
physician  is  the  man  he  wronged,  both  he  and  Hester,  after 
all  their  suffering,  see  their  love  as  a  holy  thing,  not  to  be  re 
gretted;  and  Chillingworth  himself,  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  story,  admits  to  Hester  that  her  unfaithfulness  was  no 
worse  than  the  wrong  he  had  done  her.  "Mine  was  the  first 
wrong,"  he  said,  "when  I  betrayed  thy  budding  youth  into 
a  false  and  unnatural  relation  with  my  decay.  .  .  .  Between 
thee  and  me,  the  scale  hangs  fairly  balanced." 

Upon  the  original  sin,  then,  Hawthorne  passes  no  judg 
ment.  The  community,  however,  following  a  conservative 
and  literal  ideal  of  morality,  do  pass  judgment  upon  Hester. 
The  punishment  they  bestow  illustrates,  as  has  well  been 
said,  the  clumsy  failure  of  law  to  reach  the  soul.  But  Haw 
thorne  makes  another,  equally  subtle,  use  of  the  Puritan  com 
munity  and  their  stern  law  to  emphasize,  against  that  somber 
background,  the  natural  force  of  generous  youth.  Radical 
enough  in  the  Old  Country,  the  Puritans  stand  in  the  New 
World  for  a  very  rigid  conventionality;  their  ideas  seem  al 
ready  stultified,  inelastic,  out  of  sympathy  with  the  expanse 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  247 

of  nature  into  which  they  have  penetrated.  "Hester  and  Dim- 
mesdale,  whether  Hawthorne  intended  it  so  or  not,  are  crea 
tures  of  a  new  life,  a  larger  world  and  larger  ideas.  Their  fit 
place  of  meeting  is  in  the  forest,  whither  the  conventional 
community  do  not  come.  In  no  real  way  are  they  an  integral 
part  of  that  community;  they  are  opposed  to  it,  and  to  the  age 
long  untenderness  for  which  it  stands,  less  picturesquely  but 
as  truly  as  the  Lord  and  Lady  of  the  May  were  opposed  to 
Endicott  and  his  men,  in  the  tale  of  Merry  Mount.  Indeed, 
the  theme  of  the  individual  rising  above  the  community's 
ideal  appears  under  many  guises  in  The  Scarlet  Letter, — in  the 
single  kind  word  for  Hester  from  the  curious  crowd  around 
the  pillory;  in  the  generous  impulses  of  Dr.  Wilson  and  the 
Governor,  when  they  let  themselves  be  persuaded  not  to  take 
Hester's  child  from  her;  and  most  in  Hester  herself,  the 
largest  mind  and  the  largest  nature  in  the  book, — for  whom  the 
world's  law  was  no  law.  "It  was  an  age  in  which  the  human 
intellect,  newly  emancipated,  had  taken  a  more  active  and  a 
wider  range  than  for  many  centuries  before.  Men  of  the  sword 
had  overthrown  nobles  and  kings.  Men  bolder  than  these 
had  overthrown  and  rearranged — not  actually,  but  within  the 
sphere  of  theory,  which  was  their  most  real  abode — the  whole 
system  of  ancient  prejudice,  wherewith  was  linked  much  of 
ancient  principle.  Hester  Prynne  imbibed  this  spirit.  She  as 
sumed  a  freedom  of  speculation,  then  common  enough  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  but  which  our  forefathers,  had  they 
known  it,  would  have  held  to  be  a  deadlier  crime  than  that 
stigmatized  by  the  scarlet  letter.  In  her  lonesome  cottage  by 
the  sea-shore,  thoughts  visited  her,  such  as  dared  to  enter  no 
other  dwelling  in  New  England — shadowy  guests,  that  would 
have  been  as  perilous  as  demons  to  their  entertainer,  could 
they  have  been  seen  so  much  as  knocking  at  her  door." 

Since  Hawthorne's  interest  is  always  in  the  effect  of  life  on 
the  soul,  and  here  in  the  effect  of  sin,  he  leaves  untold  the 


248  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

story  of  Dimmesdale's  love  for  Hester,  and  begins  the  ro 
mance  so  long  after  the  episodes  which  condition  it,  that  curi 
osity  itself  is  baffled  in  the  effort  to  imagine  the  story  of  Hes 
ter's  fall.  When  we  first  see  her  and  her  lover,  the  sin  has 
already  had  a  changing  effect  upon  both;  Hester  has  been 
strengthened  by  her  very  resistance  to  persecution,  and  en 
nobled  by  her  resolve  not  to  betray  her  lover,  and  the  cow 
ardice  of  the  minister  has  already  weakened  his  nature  to  a 
degree  that  renders  it  hard  to  conceive  of  him  as  the  passionate 
lover.  Such  an  arrangement  of  the  plot  doubtless  came  nat 
urally  from  Hawthorne's  lack  of  interest  in  the  first  sin,  but 
it  serves  also  to  raise  the  story  to  a  lofty  tone,  by  showing 
Hester,  not  as  receiving  love,  but  as  giving  it, — becoming 
through  her  pity  as  much  the  protector  of  Dimmesdale  as  of 
Pearl.  Her  bosom  pillows  the  broken-hearted  minister  not 
as  a  lover  but  as  a  son;  even  her  plan  to  flee  with  him  is  an  act 
of  generous  rescue,  not  at  all  of  passion.  That  Hester  was  a 
different  woman  when  Dimmesdale  first  won  her  is  plainly 
intimated,  but  her  old  nature  has  been  purified,  and  when 
she  comes  to  Dimmesdale's  rescue  at  last,  her  love  is  without 
dross. 

The  effect  of  sin  unconfessed  is  the  theme  of  the  minister's 
story,  and  it  needs  no  comment;  Dimmesdale's  character, 
examined  outside  this  allegorical  intention,  is  hard  to  under 
stand.  This  weakness  seems  inbred  and  habitual;  one  ques 
tions  how  he  could  have  won  the  love  of  such  a  woman  as 
Hester,  except  as  he  wins  it  at  the  end,  through  pity.  This 
apparent  difficulty  is  in  the  fact  that  Dimmesdale's  nature, 
when  we  first  see  it,  is  more  changed  from  what  it  was,  than 
Hester's;  on  him  the  sin  still  lays  its  full  weight,  but  her  pub 
lic  expiation,  little  as  she  knows  it,  has  relieved  her  from  the 
full  evil  of  the  inward  curse.  And  Dimmesdale's  sin  was  the 
act  of  impulse,  as  his  confession  is  at  last.  We  see  him  in  his 
normal  mood,  and  in  that  state  the  sin  would  have  been  im- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  249 

possible  for  him.  Nothing  could  show  a  more  complete  mis 
understanding  of  Hawthorne's  romance  than  the  charge,  ac 
tually  made  at  the  time,  that  the  story  pandered  to  base 
thoughts,  and  ushered  in  an  era  of  "French "  literature.  The 
interest  is  so  far  removed,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  story, 
from  any  episode  of  passion,  that  the  reader  almost  forgets, 
as  he  is  meant  to  do,  the  nature  of  the  sin  for  which  Hester  is 
punished  and  Dimmesdale  persecuted. 

In  Chillingworth  Hawthorne  shows  the  working  out  of 
private  revenge — as  ineffectual  for  its  purpose  as  the  public 
retribution  of  the  law.  The  wronged  physician,  who  for  all 
the  latent  evil  in  his  nature  yet  begins  his  revenge  with  a 
sense  of  justice,  passes  gradually  from  a  dark  ambition  to  dis 
cover  the  father  of  Pearl,  to  a  fiendish  determination  to  ruin 
the  minister's  soul.  No  one  recognizes  better  than  Chilling- 
worth,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  tale,  that  for  Dimmesdale  to 
confess  his  sin  would  be  to  regain  his  lost  manhood,  though 
such  a  confession  was  what  the  physician  first  desired  as  his 
revenge.  The  terrible  revolution  in  his  own  character  is 
shown  by  his  frantic  effort  at  last  to  keep  the  secret,  lest  the 
minister  escape.  That  evil  breeds  evil,  is  the  moral  he 
teaches, — a  theme  peculiarly  Hawthorne's.  It  is  reflected 
from  many  passages  in  this  book,  and  elsewhere  throughout 
his  work.  The  principle  is  at  work  in  Hester's  heart,  when  at 
first  her  self-consciousness  of  sin  begets  sight  all  too  keen  into 
the  sinfulness  of  others  she  had  thought  pure.  Like  young 
Goodman  Brown,  she  sees  uncovered  the  blackness  of  secret 
sins;  the  honored  matron,  the  young  maiden,  are  revealed  by 
the  light  of  the  scarlet  letter  to  be  of  her  fallen  sisterhood. 
That  Hester  was  not  altogether  lost,  is  shown  by  her  deter 
mined  resistance  to  this  fearful  loss  of  faith  in  her  kind.  This, 
however,  is  but  one  aspect  of  the  evil  principle.  Even  acci 
dental  sin,  the  wrong  come  at  through  ignorant  impulse,  fas 
cinated  Hawthorne's  mind  with  its  power  over  conduct.  In 


250  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  Introduction  to  the  Mosses  he  had  dwelt  on  the  story 
Lowell  told  him,  of  a  youth  who  chanced  on  the  scene  of  the 
Concord  fight,  with  an  axe  in  his  hand,  immediately  after 
the  battle;  a  wounded  British  soldier  raised  himself  from  the 
ground  before  him  and  stared  into  his  face, — whereupon  the 
boy,  by  a  nervous  impulse,  brained  the  wretch  with  a  single 
blow.  "The  story  comes  home  to  me  like  truth/'  says  Haw 
thorne.  "  Oftentimes,  as  an  intellectual  and  moral  exercise, 
I  have  sought  to  follow  that  poor  youth  through  his  subse 
quent  career,  and  observe  how  his  soul  was  tortured  by  the 
bloodstain,  contracted  as  it  had  been  before  the  long  custom 
of  war  had  robbed  human  life  of  its  sanctity,  and  while  it 
still  seemed  murderous  to  slay  a  brother  man.  This  one  cir 
cumstance  has  borne  more  fruit  for  me  than  all  that  history 
tells  us  of  the  fight."  Some  of  the  fruit  of  the  incident  is  to  be 
found  in  these  stricken  characters  of  The  Scarlet  Letter,  es 
pecially  in  Chillingworth.  He  is  impelled  to  his  diabolical 
revenge  by  the  sin  of  Hester,  which  in  turn  he  himself  admits 
was  conditioned  by  his  own  loveless  marriage  with  her, — and 
that  initial  wrong  was  error,  not  sin.  The  worst  of  his  pur 
pose  is  accomplished  when  he  bids  Hester  tell  Dimmesdale 
who  the  physician  is,  and  gives  as  his  reason  for  the  permis 
sion,  his  belief  that  all  three  persons  are  in  the  grip  of  fate. 
"By  thy  first  step  awry,"  he  tells  Hester,  "thou  didst  plant 
the  germ  of  evil;  but  since  that  moment,  it  has  all  been  a  dark 
necessity.  You  that  have  wronged  me  are  not  sinful,  save  in 
a  kind  of  typical  illusion;  neither  am  I  fiend-like,  who  have 
snatched  a  fiend's  office  from  his  hands.  It  is  our  fate.  Let 
the  black  flower  blossom  as  it  may." 

In  these  words  and  elsewhere  in  the  story  Chillingworth 
makes  some  appeal  to  our  sympathy;  but  the  infrequent  mo 
ment  is  soon  forgotten  in  the  general  malevolence  of  his 
career,  and  he  is  the  one  utterly  lost  person  in  the  book.  Dim- 
mesdale's  pitiful  heroism  at  the  last  justifies  Hester's  love; 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  251 

Hester  herself  rises  far  above  her  sin  into  a  glorified  woman 
hood;  Chillingworth  almost  if  not  quite  repeats  the  history 
of  Rappaccini's  daughter,  and  having  fed  his  soul  exclus 
ively  on  moral  poisons,  perishes  when  that  ill  fare  is  taken 
away. 

Much  of  the  problem  of  the  story  and  most  of  the  hope  in 
it  comes  through  the  character  of  Pearl.  She  creates  the  prob 
lem,  to  Hester's  mind,  not  only  because  her  rebellious  mood 
makes  her  the  incarnation  of  her  mother's  wilfulness,  but  also 
because,  though  the  child  of  sin,  she  is  lovable  and  lovely; 
"How  strange,  indeed!  Man  had  marked  this  woman's  sin 
by  a  scarlet  letter,  which  had  such  potent  and  disastrous  ef 
ficacy  that  no  human  sympathy  could  reach  her,  save  it  were 
sinful  like'herself.  God,  as  a  direct  consequence  of  the  sin 
which  man  thus  punished,  had  given  her  a  lovely  child,  whose 
place  was  on  that  same  dishonored  bosom,  to  connect  her 
parents  forever  with  the  race  and  descent  of  mortals,  and  to  be 
finally  a  blessed  soul  in  heaven!"  Whatever  comfort  could 
be  had  from  the  paradox,  Hester  at  first  put  aside,  not  daring 
to  make  it  hers.  Yet  as  Pearl  is  the  incarnation  of  Hester's 
sin,  so  in  mastering  the  evil  in  the  child's  nature,  and  direct 
ing  its  strong  impulses,  the  mother  conquers  her  own  wilful- 
ness  and  saves  her  own  soul.  Dimmesdale's  keen  instinct, 
sharpened  by  envy  of  Hester's  misery,  so  nobler  than  his, 
sees  the  truth  and  phrases  it  for  the  Governor  and  Mr.  Wil 
son, — that  the  child  was  the  salvation  as  well  as  the  torture  of 
the  mother,  teaching  her,  "as  it  were  by  the  Creator's  sacred 
pledge,  that,  if  she  bring  the  child  to  heaven,  the  child  also 
will  bring  its  parent  thither.  Herein  is  the  sinful  mother 
happier,"  he  said,  "  than  the  sinful  father."  Before  the  story 
is  finished,  Pearl's  elfish  heart  has  been  softened  and  human 
ized.  At  her  father's  death  her  soul  is  saved  beyond  even 
Hester's  fear;  "  As  her  tears  fell  upon  her  father's  cheek,  they 
were  the  pledge  that  she  would  grow  up  amid  human  joy  and 


252  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

sorrow,  nor  forever  do  battle  with  the  world,  but  be  a  woman 
in  it." 

It  is  a  kind  of  impertinence  to  speak  of  the  technical  great 
ness  of  such  a  masterpiece  as  The  Scarlet  Letter.  Yet  the 
reader  would  be  indeed  thankless  who  failed  to  note  how  much 
of  his  pleasure  is  in  the  solemn,  musical  cadence  with  which 
the  story  moves.  The  lofty  manner  extends  even  to  the  dia 
logue,  so  that  the  varied  characters  speak  alike  in  a  somber 
eloquence  permissible  in  romance.  Like  Cooper,  Hawthorne 
does  not  excel  in  the  naturalness  of  his  dialogue;  the  pas 
sages  in  which  Hester  faces  the  physician,  or  Governor  Bel- 
lingham,  or  Mr.  Wilson,  have  their  power  from  their  deep 
emotion  rather  than  from  the  verisimilitude  of  the  speeches 
they  contain.  And  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  largest  and  most 
powerful  sections  of  the  story, — the  chapters  dealing  with  the 
changes  of  Hester's  character,  and  Dimmesdale's,  and  Pearl's 
and  Chillingworth's — those  subtle  analyses  which  are  the 
heart  of  the  book,— all  represent  the  story  indirectly,  with  no 
conversation,  no  action,  and  no  person  on  the  stage.  This 
striking  trait  marks  the  book's  near  kinship  with  the  essay 
type — with  the  germs  of  the  novel  rather  than  with  its  de 
veloped  modern  form;  and  it  indicates  further,  by  his  choice 
of  method,  how  much  more  deeply  Hawthorne  was  concerned 
with  the  lessons  and  philosophies  of  life — natural  essay  ma 
terial,  than  with  the  presentation  of  life  itself. 

VIII 

Late  in  the  spring  of  1850  the  Hawthornes  removed  to  a 
little  red  house,  since  burned  down,  in  Lenox,  where  for  a 
year  and  a  half  they  were  to  enjoy  a  simple  home,  quite  as 
happy  as  the  Old  Manse.  The  fame  that  came  from  The 
Scarlet  Letter  would  have  made  a  greater  difference  to  another 
man;  to  Hawthorne  it  meant  little  beyond  the  comfortable 
future  it  promised.  He  never  had  the  slightest  wish  to  be 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  253 

lionized  at  any  time  in  his  life,  and  now  he  retired  to  a  solitude 
almost  as  complete  as  though  he  were  indeed  the  most  ob 
scure  of  American  writers,  instead  of  one  of  the  most  noted. 
A  few  friends  in  the  neighborhood  visited  the  household,— 
Herman  Melville,  the  novelist,  Fields,  Holmes,  and  others; 
Fanny  Kemble  would  ride  up  on  her  strong  black  horse  and 
converse,  "in  heroic  phrases,"  with  the  inmates,  and  once  at 
least  delighted  the  small  boy  of  the  family  by  giving  him  a 
spirited  gallop  astride  the  saddle  before  her.    But  it  was  in  the 
inner  happiness  of  his  home  that  Hawthorne  found  the  recrea 
tion  he  much  needed.    How  happy  that  household  was  is  seen  \ 
in  the  family  letters  of  the  time;  it  is  enough  here  to  state  the  j 
fact,  for  the  Hawthorne  home  remained  proverbial  for  its! 
ideal  sweetness,  even  among  the  characteristically  happy  do- 
mestic  histories  of  American  literary  men. 

In  August  Hawthorne  began  his  second  novel,  The  Hoitse 
of  the  Seven  Gables,  and  finished  it  on  January  26,  1851.  The 
record  of  its  composition  comes  from  both  the  writer  and  his 
wife.  In  October  Hawthorne  wrote  to  his  publisher  that  he 
should  not  be  doing  his  best  work  until  after  the  first  frost, 
which  always  colored  his  imagination  as  it  did  the  foliage.  A 
month  later  he  shows  more  clearly  that  he  is  troubled  by  what 
he  considers  the  slow  progress  of  the  book.  "I  find  the  book 
requires  more  care  and  thought  than  The  Scarlet  Letter;  also 
I  have  to  wait  oftener  for  a  mood.  The  Scarlet  Letter  being  all 
in  one  tone,  I  had  only  to  get  my  pitch,  and  could  then  go  on 
interminably.  Many  passages  of  this  book  ought  to  be  fin 
ished  with  the  minuteness  of  a  Dutch  picture,  in  order  to  give 
them  their  proper  effect.  Sometimes,  when  tired  of  it,  it 
strikes  me  that  the  whole  is  an  absurdity,  from  beginning  to 
end ;  but  the  fact  is,  in  writing  a  romance,  a  man  is  always,  or 
ought  to  be,  careering  on  the  utmost  verge  of  a  precipitous 
absurdity,  and  the  skill  lies  in  coming  as  close  as  possible, 
without  actually  tumbling  over.  My  prevailing  idea  is,  that 


254 


LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 


the  book  ought  to  succeed  better  than  The  Scarlet  Letter, 
though  I  have  no  idea  that  it  will." 

When  the  book  was  finished,  Hawthorne  stated  again  on 
several  occasions  his  preference  for  this  over  his  first  romance; 
he  thought  it  more  characteristic  of  his  mind,  more  natural 
for  him  to  write.  In  later  years  he  is  said  to  have  realized 
more  fully  the  unique  greatness  of  The  Scarlet  Letter,  but  his 
instinctive  liking  for  the  less  somber  story  accords  with  what 
we  read  of  his  private  life,  and  with  the  sketches  in  the  Twice 
Told  Tales  which  give  a  cheerful  inkling  of  his  nature.  His 
wife  recorded  her  delight  as  the  story,  in  process  of  compo 
sition,  was  read  to  her.  Her  enthusiasm,  not  unnaturally, 
seems  partial,  yet  her  praise  shows  a  discrimination  of  her 
husband's  true  gifts, — his  ability  to  bring  "up  out  of  the 
muddied  wells  the  pearl  of  price;"  and  she  recognizes  with 
satisfaction  the  book's  increased  cheerfulness  over  The  Scar 
let  Letter. 

Though  less  powerful  and  less  unique  than  Hawthorne's 
masterpiece,  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  can  lay  claim  to 
being  a  truer  picture  of  New  England,  and  in  every  way  a 
more  lovable  book.  Its  author  thought  it  might  suffer  more 
severely  from  criticism  because  it  was  laid  in  less  ancient  times, 
and  its  defects  as  a  portrait  of  life  might  therefore  be  easily 
noted  by  the  average  reader.  But  whatever  the  supposed  date 
of  the  story,  nothing  that  Hawthorne  wrote  belongs  more  com 
pletely  in  the  past;  age  is  its  very  element.  Its  truth  also  is 
without  date,  universal;  the  apparently  special  features  in  its 
realism  are  still  traceable  in  New  England  to-day,  and  so  near 
did  the  general  theme  of  the  romance  come  to  a  just  portrait, 
that  an  irate  gentleman  named  Pyncheon  indorsed  it  by  ac 
cusing  Hawthorne  of  using  his  grandfather  as  the  original  of 
the  villain  in  the  story.  The  society  described  is  strongly 
marked  by  tradition;  the  house  itself  is  the  very  symbol  of 
antiquity;  the  family  live  in  the  past,  in  inherited  pride  and 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  255 

inherited  ambitions;  the  characters  themselves  are  well  on  in 
years, — save  Phcebe,  whose  youth  seems  a  quaint  exotic,  a 
winter-flower.  The  passion  of  young  hearts,  which  furnished 
the  tragic  problem  and  the  atmosphere  of  The  Scarlet  Letter, 
is  altogether  lacking  here;  the  warmth  of  Phoebe's  nature  and 
her  love  for  Holgrave  are  solitary  rays  in  the  November  sun- 
_sei,  no  less  chilly  for  their  light. 

As  the  earlier  romance  portrayed  the  effects  of  sin  upon  the 
sinners,  so  this  story  analyzes  the  effects  of  ancient  wrong 
upon  the  last  generation — sin  working  its  will  and  receiving 
its  reward,  not  at  one  moment,  but  in  long  process  of  time. 
The  wrong  that  Judge  Pyncheon  has  on  his  conscience,  the 
injustice  to  Clifford,  is  not  the  book's  subject,  though  it  is  the 
immediate  concern  of  the  plot;  the  Judge's  sin  was  brought 
about  by  the  ill-gotten  estate  that  he  coveted,  and  the  ill- 
gotten  estate  had  its  ancestry  in  the  original  sin  of  the  first 
Pyncheon — his  legal  murder  of  Maule,  and  the  confiscation  of 
Maule's  property.  The  effects  of  this  far-off  crime  are  the 
romance's  theme.  Perhaps  it  is  because  the  crime  is  so  re 
mote,  that  the  story  seems  to  move  in  a  bloodless  old  age; 
the  passion  of  that  first  ancestor  is  long-spent,  and  his  blood 
after  many  generations  is  shown  to  us  coursing  feebly  through 
an  almost  ghostly  expiation.  The  familiar  theme  of  the  sins 
of  the  fathers,  treated  more  dramatically  in  Ibsen's  famous 
tragedy,  is  here  studied  in  a  quieter  mood  but  with  the  same 
relentless  grip  on  fate.  In  the  actual  limits  of  the  story  no 
body  does  anything,  nor  shows  initiative,  if  we  except  the 
vague  and  phantasmal  flight  of  Hepzibah  and  Clifford.  In 
the  truest  sense,  all  the  characters  suffer  life,  rather  than  live 
it;  even  Judge  Pyncheon' s  hypocrisy  makes  the  tacit  plea  for 
itself  that  the  Judge  is  the  involuntary  reincarnation  of  the 
evil  genius  of  his  line. 

Not  only  the  evil  but  the  good  also  in  the  Pyncheon  family, 
their  ideals  and  their  pride  even  in  adversity,  are  the  gift  of 


256  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

the  past.  The  lost  deed,  which  would  have  made  them  heirs 
of  a  princely  estate  in  Maine,  bestowed  upon  the  family,  from 
generation  to  generation,  a  sense  of  importance,  causing  "the 
poorest  member  of  the  race  to  feel  as  if  he  inherited  a  kind  of 
nobility,  and  might  yet  come  into  the  possession  of  princely 
wealth  to  support  it."  This  pride  of  inheritance,  where  only 
pride  is  inherited,  is  common  enough  in  New  England,  and 
in  a  measure  was  said  to  characterize  the  Hawthornes.  In 
more  conscious  ways  the  author  wrote  his  history  into  the 
book;  it  was  his  own  ancestor  John  Hawthorne  who  hanged  a 
witch  and  was  cursed  by  the  victim,  and  who  thereafter  lost 
the  deed  which  would  have  given  the  family  title  to  the  town 
of  Raymond,  in  Maine.  And  perhaps  the  trying  acquaint 
ance  which  Hawthorne  had  made  with  poverty  during  his 
married  years  had  furnished  him  with  the  power  to  write  as 
exquisitely  as  he  does  of  Hepzibah's  fine  feelings,  bruised  by 
the  rough  necessities  of  life.  In  her  the  pride  of  family,  based 
on  an  all  but  mythical  claim,  had  evolved  through  time's 
magic  into  true  delicacy  and  elevation  of  mind.  Nothing  in 
the  book  convinces  more  poignantly  than  the  sight  of  the 
gaunt  daughter  of  the  Puritans  setting  the  penny  shop  in 
order,  in  a  heroic  resolve,  at  whatever  cost  to  her  pride,  to  go 
into  trade.  When  Hawthorne  lets  us  see  this  unprepossessing 
gentlewoman  agonizing  over  her  first  sale  of  a  gingerbread 
doll,  and  refusing  to  take  a  child's  money  for  it,  he  seems  to 
plead  for  a  kinder  view  of  the  New  England  temper,  chill  and 
angular  as  it  sometimes  appears,  than  he  feels  sure  of  finding 
in  his  readers;  and  on  an  earlier  page  he  puts  the  plea  into 
\vords.  "What  tragic  dignity,"  he  asks,  "can  be  wrought 
into  a  scene  like  this !  How  can  we  elevate  our  history  of  ret 
ribution  for  the  sin  of  long  ago,  when,  as  one  of  our  most 
prominent  figures,  we  are  compelled  to  introduce — not  a 
young  and  lovely  woman,  nor  even  the  stately  remains  of 
beauty,  storm-shattered  by  affliction— but  a  gaunt,  sallow, 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  257 

rusty- jointed  maiden,  in  a  long-waisted  silk  gown,  and  with 
the  strange  horror  of  a  turban  on  her  head !  Her  visage  is  not 
even  ugly.  It  is  redeemed  from  insignificance  only  by  the 
contraction  of  her  eyebrows  into  a  near-sighted  scowl.  And, 
finally,  her  great  life-trial  seems  to  be,  that,  after  sixty  years 
of  idleness,  she  finds  it  convenient  to  earn  comfortable  bread 
by  setting  up  a  shop  in  a  small  way.  Nevertheless,  if  we  look 
through  all  the  heroic  fortunes  of  mankind,  we  shall  find  this 
same  entanglement  of  something  mean  and  trivial  with  what 
ever  is  noblest  in  joy  or  sorrow.  .  .  .  What  is  called  poetic 
insight  is  the  gift  of  discerning,  in  this  sphere  of  strangely 
mingled  elements,  the  beauty  and  the  majesty  which  are  com 
pelled  to  assume  a  garb  so  sordid." 

In  this  book,  as  in  The  Scarlet  Letter,  Hawthorne  raises  the 
problem  of  the  punishment  of  sin,  and  solves  it  in  much  the 
same  way;  the  course  of  retribution  unfolds  according  to  a 
higher  will  than  man's,  and  time  rather  than  the  law  pro 
nounces  sentence.  In  this  respect  the  story  has  points  of  re 
semblance  with  Shakspere's  The  Tempest,  and  in  the  whole 
matter  of  poetic  justice  Hawthorne  is  as  near  as  any  other 
writer  to  the  great  poet.  The  wrong  spends  itself  in  time,  or 
recoils  upon  the  doer,  and  the  victim  has  his  compensation  in 
such  inward  ways  that  the  belated  restoration  of  a  stolen 
dukedom  is  irrelevant.  So  here,  the  murder  of  old  Maule 
spends  itself  in  one  long  curse  upon  the  Pyncheon  line,  their 
ill-gotten  wealth  shrivels  in  the  end  to  a  worthless  paper,  and 
the  last  of  Maule's  descendants  comes  to  his  own,  not  by  a  res 
titution  of  his  stolen  rights,  but  through  the  natural  force  of 
his  character.  What  an  inherited  grievance  will  do  for  char 
acter,  molding  it  to  a  sensitive  resistance  to  wrong  in  any 
form,  is  thus  illustrated  in  Holgrave,  who,  without  benefit  of 
education,  had  been  in  turn  a  schoolmaster,  a  salesman,  an 
editor,  a  peddler,  a  dentist,  a  sailor,  a  lecturer  on  mesmerism, 
and  finally  a  daguerreotypist;  but  through  these  dangerously 


258  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

varied  employments  his  soul  came  unharmed,  because  It  had 
been  true  to  one  law  of  its  own,  not  at  all  like  the  law  of  an 
ordinary  soul.  Of  ordinary  convention,  even  of  respecta 
bility  in  the  narrow  sense,  the  experience  of  himself  and  his 
ancestors,  from  Maule  down,  had  made  him  distrustful;  the 
last  effect  of  the  ancient  wrong,  and  its  reparation,  was  the 
self-reliance  which  makes  him  the  hero  of  the  book.  "The 
true  value  of  his  character  lay  in  that  deep  consciousness  of 
inward  strength,  which  made  all  his  past  vicissitudes  seem 
merely  like  a  change  of  garments;  in  that  enthusiasm,  so 
quiet  that  he  scarcely  knew  of  its  existence,  but  which  gave 
a  warmth  to  everything  that  he  laid  his  hand  on;  in  that  per 
sonal  ambition,  hidden — from  his  own  as  well  as  other  eyes — 
among  his  more  generous  impulses,  but  in  which  lurked  a 
certain  efficacy,  that  might  solidify  him  from  a  theorist  into 
the  champion  of  some  practical  cause." 

More  than  in  The  Scarlet  Letter -y  the  persons  in  this  story 
are  strangely  solitary  figures,  touched  as  it  were  by  the  very 
quality  of  Hawthorne's  own  retiring  nature,  so  that  they  meet 
each  other  only  at  certain  points,  if  they  meet  at  all;  never  do 
they  mingle.  The  wonderful  bond  of  loyalty  between  Hepzi- 
bah  and  Clifford  leaves  them  entirely  apart  to  the  imagina 
tion,  nor  does  the  girlish  Phcebe  seem  one  with  her  much- 
experienced,  strange-thoughted  lover.  Uncle  Venner  lives  in 
his  own  world,  which  is  somewhat  hard  to  locate;  his  simple 
mind  furnishes  the  book  with  a  sweet  wisdom  that  no  other 
person  in  it  is  capable  of,  and  his  aloofness  from  human  in 
terests,  save  through  unselfish  contemplation  of  them,  gives 
him  a  kind  of  kinship  with  the  legendary  Alice  Pyncheon 
whose  spirit  haunts  the  house. 

Much  of  the  early  method  of  the  Twice  Told  Tales  lives  on 
in  this  story.  Hawthorne's  proneness  for  the  physical  symbol 
is  in  the  repeated  death-scenes  of  the  doomed  race,  to  whom 
God  gave  blood  to  drink;  it  is  found  also  in  the  influence  of 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  259 

the  portrait  of  old  Judge  Pyncheon,  which  looks  down  upon 
the  household  with  malign  influence,  and  before  which  its 
tragedies  are  enacted.  But  the  strongest  resemblance  to  the 
early  stories  is  in  the  musing,  essay  tone  of  the  book;  it  seems 
to  be,  as  one  of  Hawthorne's  best  critics  has  said,  the  climax 
of  the  every-day  group  of  realistic,  contemplative  sketches, 
as  The  Scarlet  Letter  is  the  culmination  of  the  finer  tales.  The 
atmosphere  of  the  book,  its  quaintness  and  delicacy,  is  the 
product  of  the  same  fine  observation,  the  same  microscopic 
truth,  that  made  the  value  of  the  essay-sketches  in  the  first 
volume.  To  many  readers  this  is  the  charm  of  the  romance; 
without  being  greatly  stirred* by  the  shadowy  story,  they  de 
light  in  the  verity  of  the  fragile  characters,  moving  through 
the  half-light  of  their  uneventful  world,  which  yet  is  con 
vincingly  portrayed. 

The  letter  that  James  Russell  Lowell  wrote  to  Hawthorne 
on  the  appearance  of  the  new  book  may  well  be  taken  as  typi 
cal  of  its  reception.  "I  thought  I  could  not  forgive  you,"  he 
says,  "if  yqji  wrote  anything  better  than  The  Scarlet  Letter; 
but  I  cannot  help  believing  it  a  great  triumph  that  you  should 
have  been*  able  to  deepen  and  widen  the  impression  made  by 
such  a  book  as  that.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  'House'  is  the 
most  valuable  contribution  to  New  England  history  that  has 
been  made.  It  is  with  the  highest  art  that  you  have  typified 
(in  the  revived  likeness  of  Judge  Pyncheon  to  his  ancestor 
the  Colonel)  that  intimate  relationship  between  the  Present 
and  the  Past  in  the  way  of  ancestry  and  descent,  which  his 
torians  so  carefully  overlook.  Yesterday  is  commonly  looked 
upon  and  written  about  as  if  of  no  kin  to  to-day,  though  the 
one  is  legitimate  child  of  the  other,  and  has  its  veins  filled 
with  the  same  blood.  And  the  chapter  about  Alice  and  the 
Carpenter, — Salem,  which  would  not  even  allow  you  so  much 
as  Scotland  gave  Burns,  will  build  you  a  monument  yet  for 
having  shown  that  she  did  not  hang  her  witches  for  nothing." 


200  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

In  May,  1851,  Hawthorne's  second  daughter,  Rose,  was 
born.  Now  that  the  book  was  out  of  the  way,  the  happy  life 
of  his  Lenox  home  filled  his  thoughts;  for  four  months  he  did 
practically  nothing  but  play  with  his  children,  making  boats 
and  kites  for  them,  taking  them  fishing,  and  trying  to  teach 
them  to  swim.  Of  older  folks,  he  saw  most  Herman  Mel 
ville,  and  others  sought  him;  but  his  interest  was  in  the  chil 
dren,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  next  wrote  for  them. 
The  Wonder  Book,  a  collection  of  Greek  stories  retold  for 
boys  and  girls,  was  written  between  the  end  of  May  and  the 
first  of  July;  before  it  was  in  the  printer's  hands,  he  says,  Una 
and  Julian  "  could  repeat  the  greater  part  of  it  by  heart,  from 
hearing  it  read  so  often."  The  character  of  the  volume  was 
well  described  in  a  letter  to  the  publisher  in  May:  "I  mean  to 
write,  within  six  weeks  or  two  months  next  ensuing,  a  book  of 
stories  made  up  of  classical  myths.  The  subjects  are:  The 
Story  of  Midas,  with  his  Golden  Touch,  Pandora's  Box,  The 
Adventure  of  Hercules  in  quest  of  the  Golden  Apples,  Bel- 
lerophon  and  the  Chimaera,  Baucis  and  Philemon,  Perseus 
and  Medusa;  these,  I  think,  will  be  enough  to  make  up  a  vol 
ume.  As  a  framework,  I  shall  have  a  young  college  student 
telling  these  stories  to  his  cousins  and  brothers  and  sisters, 
during  their  vacations,  sometimes  at  the  fireside,  sometimes 
in  the  woods  and  dells.  Unless  I  greatly  mistake,  these  old 
fictions  will  work  up  admirably  for  the  purpose;  and  I  shall 
aim  at  substituting  a  tone  in  some  degree  Gothic  or  romantic, 
or  any  such  tone  as  may  best  please  myself,  instead  of  the 
classic  coldness  which  is  as  repellant  as  the  touch  of  marble." 

Hawthorne  succeeded  in  his  purpose;  he  did  substitute  a 
"Gothic"  tone,  and  he  has  been  criticized  for  so  doing.  But 
whatever  may  be  the  feelings  of  a  Greek  scholar  on  his  use  of 
the  myths,  there  are  no  two  opinions  as  to  the  charm  of  the 
book  for  young  people.  Its  effect  upon  his  own  children  has 
been  recorded,  and  thousands  of  others  have  also  known  it 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  261 

by  heart;  it  is  a  classic  of  childhood's  literature.  The  average 
reader  neglects  it  in  his  estimate  of  Hawthorne's  temper,  or 
we  should  less  often  hear  the  romancer  spoken  of  as  darkly 
brooding,  or  as  preoccupied  with  morbid  thoughts;  the  happi 
ness  of  his  nature  is  here  written  unmistakably,  as  the  energy 
and  sanity  of  it  is  written  in  his  note-books.  Two  years 
later  Hawthorne  wrote  the  Tanglewood  Tales,  a  companion 
series,  which  he  thus  described  to  R.  H.  Stoddard:  "I  have 
finished  the  Tanglewood  Tales,  and  they  make  a  volume  about 
the  size  of  the  Wonder  Book,  consisting  of  six  myths, — the 
Minotaur,  the  Golden  Fleece,  the  story  of  Proserpine,  etc., 
etc.,  etc.,  done  up  in  excellent  style,  purified  from  all  moral 
stains,  re-created  as  good  as  new,  or  better,  and  fully  equal, 
in  their  own  ways,  to  Mother  Goose.  I  never  did  anything 
else  so  well  as  these  old  baby  stories." 

Hawthorne's  next  work  was  the  compilation  of  his  third 
volume  of  short  stories,  The  Snow  Image  and  Other  Twice 
Told  Tales,  which  was  published  in  the  beginning  of  1852. 
The  tales  in  this  volume  ranged  in  date  from  the  beginning  of 
his  literary  career  to  the  period  when  he  wrote  The  Scarlet 
Letter;  it  has  been  supposed  that  three  of  them,  The  Snow 
Image,  The  Great  Stone  Face,  and  Ethan  Brand,  were  in 
tended  originally  for  publication  with  the  romance.  The 
volume  not  unnaturally  makes  a  more  miscellaneous  im 
pression  than  the  first  Tales  or  the  Mosses;  in  general  char 
acteristics,  however,  it  is  thought  of  as  their  counterpart; 
Hawthorne  had  nothing  further  to  say  in  the  short  story. 

On  the  2ist  of  November,  1851,  Hawthorne  had  moved 
from  Lenox  to  West  Newton,  a  suburb  of  Boston,  where  his 
sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Horace  Mann,  lived.  The  little  red  house 
had  grown  too  small,  and  the  successful  author  was  looking 
for  a  permanent  home  for  his  family;  the  somewhat  unat 
tractive  village  he  pitched  upon  served  as  a  convenient  point 
of  departure  for  the  search.  His  son  suggests  also  that  as 


262  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

West  Newton  is  near  the  scene  of  the  Brook  Farm  experi 
ment,  and  Hawthorne's  mind  was  full  of  his  next  romance, 
based  on  that  experience,  he  may  have  wished  to  refresh  his 
memory  of  the  locality;  if  there  is  any  truth  in  the  surmise, 
it  would  indicate  a  departure  from  Hawthorne's  usual  method 
of  imaging  his  story. 

The  Blithedale  Romance  was  published  in  1852.  It  has  at 
tained  much  popularity,  but  is  in  all  respects  the  feeblest  of 
Hawthorne's  writings.  For  the  material  of  it  he  went  to  his 
Brook  Farm  days,  intending  to  express  his  attitude  toward 
the  professional  reformer,  a  type  for  which  he  felt  much  dis 
like.  Practically  everything  in  the  novel  is  transferred,  so 
far  as  outward  incident  is  concerned,  from  his  note-books  of 
the  community  period;  the  life  on  the  farm,  with  its  initial 
snow-storm,  the  talk  about  mesmerism,  the  little  seamstress 
from  Boston  who  figures  in  the  book  as  Priscilla — all  are  easily 
recognizable  in  their  place.  The  finding  of  Zenobia's  body 
is  the  description  of  an  experience  just  before  Hawthorne 
left  Concord;  on  the  night  of  July  9,  1843,  as  ne  ten<s  m  tne 
journal,  Ellery  Channing  took  him  to  search  for  the  body  of  a 
girl  who  had  drowned  herself  in  the  river  near  by,  and  the 
incidents  and  personages  portrayed  in  the  note-book  reappear 
in  the  romance  almost  unchanged.  These  are  only  the  most 
obvious  sources  of  the  book  in  Hawthorne's  life;  other  par 
allels  can  be  found  in  great  number. 

One  reason  for  the  ease  with  which  the  sources  can  be  iden 
tified,  is  that  the  raw  material,  so  to  speak,  has  been  presented 
to  us  undeveloped  and  unfused.  The  most  obvious  fault  of 
the  romance  is  that  it  is  unwrought;  for  once  Hawthorne's 
art  flagged.  The  plot  is  at  best  indefinite;  what  there  is  of  it 
is  all  in  the  twenty-second  chapter,  where  Fauntleroy's  his 
tory  is  told,  and  the  problem  stated  of  his  choice  between 
recognizing  and  therefore  shaming  his  older  daughter,  Zeno- 
bia,  or  keeping  his  other  child,  Priscilla,  in  obscure  poverty. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  263 

i 

Hollingsworth's  relation  with  Zenobia  and  Priscilla,  or  Wes- 
tervelt's  with  Zenobia,  hardly  rise  to  the  importance  of  plot; 
they  have  no  direction,  and  they  no  more  than  suggest  a  prob 
lem,  and  they  are  left  unexplained  and  capricious.  That  such 
a  story  as  is  suggested  in  the  history  of  Fauntleroy  should  go 
undeveloped,  implies  an  unusual  lack  of  energy  in  Haw 
thorne's  imagination;  the  book  is  evidence  of  a  weary  mind 
grappling  with  a  difficult  idea  in  vain. 

But  the  weakness  of  the  romance  is  due  probably  to  its 
subject.  Hawthorne  was  at  home  only  in  the  moral  world, 
and  only  in  problems  of  such  gravity  as  to  involve  the  salva 
tion  of  a  soul.  Here  there  is  no  sin,  no  ancient  wrong,  nothing 
that  connects  itself  with  the  idea  of  retribution;  the  evij  studied 
is  a  mistaken  goal  of  life,  in  Hollingsworth's  zeal  for  reform, 
and  the  sad  consequence  of  his  errors  is  shown  externally,  in 
the  breaking  up  of  Blithedale  and  the  suicide  of  Zenobia, — 
not  in  the  effect  upon  his  soul  or  hers.  ^Hollingsworth's  re 
pentance  is  incredible,  for  he  had  not  consciously  done  wrong; 
the  change  in  attitude  toward  him  is  worthier  of  Dickens  than 
Hawthorne.  And  the  reader  is  surprised,  but  not  convinced, 
at  the  statement  that  Coverdale  loved  Priscilla;  having  read 
the  story,  which  owes  what  vitality  it  has  to  Zenobia,  we  know 
better. 

Zenobia  and  Hollingsworth  are  the  only  two  persons  in 
the  book  that  challenge  attention.  Not  unnaturally,  it  was 
thought  when  the  romance  appeared  that  the  heroine  was 
Margaret  Fuller,  who  had  indeed  been  associated  with  the 
Brook  Farm  movement.  Hawthorne  denied  that  he  had  used 
her  for  a  lay-figure,  yet  here  too  we  may  be  permitted  to  dis 
trust  his  knowledge  of  himself.  Zenobia  is  a  splendid  creature 
of  physique  and  impulse,  a  variant  of  Hester,  or  of  Miriam  in 
The  Marble  Faun.  Her  character,  like  theirs,  begins  in 
mystery;  unlike  theirs,  it  remains  unexplained  and  unde 
veloped  to  the  end.  The  suggestion  of  the  theatrical  in  her 


264  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

suicide,  the  false  pastoral  vein  she  was  assuming  even  in  that 
moment  of  anguish,  is  in  conflict  with  what  else  we  know  of 
her  frank  character;  and  admirable  as  she  is  to  the  imagina 
tion,  she  remains  also  unintelligible,  though  of  her  outward 
history  we  know  more  than  of  either  Hester  or  Miriam,  whom 
we  learn  to  understand.  Hollingsworth  is  evidently  Haw 
thorne's  conception  of  a  professional  reformer.  That  he 
should  not  feel  with  such  a  person,  was  inevitable.  It  is  clear, 
however,  that  he  does  injustice  to  the  type.  Artistically,  the 
character  suffers  as  does  Zenobia's,  from  incomplete  develop 
ment;  we  are  not  sure  of  his  motives,  and  hardly  follow  him 
in  his  repentance.  That  Hawthorne  suspected  the  indefinite 
drawing  of  this  figure  may  be  surmised  from  the  judgment 
pronounced  upon  him — itself  a  confession  of  weakness  from 
the  viewpoint  of  art:  "The  moral  which  presents  itself  to  my 
reflections,  as  drawn  from  Hollingsworth's  character  and 
errors,  is  simply  this, — that,  admitting  what  is  called  philan 
thropy,  when  adopted  as  a  profession,  to  be  often  useful  by  its 
energetic  impulse  to  society  at  large,  it  is  perilous  to  the  in 
dividual  whose  ruling  passion,  in  one  exclusive  channel,  it 
thus  becomes.  It  ruins,  or  is  fearfully  apt  to  ruin,  the  heart, 
the  rich  juices  of  which  God  never  meant  should  be  pressed 
violently  out,  and  distilled  into  alcoholic  liquor  by  an  unnat 
ural  process,  but  should  render  life  sweet,  bland,  and  gently 
beneficent,  and  insensibly  influence  other  hearts  and  other 
lives  to  the  same  blessed  end.  I  see  in  Hollingsworth  an  exem 
plification  of  the  most  awful  truth  in  Bunyan's  book  of  such, 
— from  the  very  gate  of  Heaven  there  is  a  by-way  to  the  pit!" 
What  popularity  The  Blithedale  Romance  keeps,  is  evidence 
largely  of  the  hold  of  Hawthorne's  other  books  upon  the 
readers  of  each  generation.  It  has  been  suggested  that  it  at 
tracts  through  the  interest  in  the  community  experiment  of 
which  it  mirrors  the  history.  But  to  Young  America  Brook 
Farm  is  already  something  less  than  an  idea;  the  reader  who 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  265 

now  comes  fresh  to  the  romance  will  probably  find  little  in  it 
beside  the  strange  but  glorious  figure  of  Zenobia,  and  the 
pervading  glamor  of  Hawthorne's  fame. 

IX 

In  June,  1852,  the  Hawthornes  moved  to  the  house  in  Con 
cord  which  had  been  bought  of  Mr.  Alcott,  and  which  was  to 
become  familiar  to  literature  as  The  Wayside,  the  author's 
permanent  home.  This  house,  with  its  twenty  acres  of  land, 
is  about  two  miles  from  the  Old  Manse,  where  Hawthorne's 
married  life  had  begun.  The  early  days  in  the  new  home 
were  saddened  by  the  death  of  his  sister  Louisa,  in  a  steam 
boat  disaster  on  the  Hudson;  with  this  large  exception,  life 
began  anew  with  promise  of  quiet  happiness,  and  Hawthorne 
could  hardly  have  foretold  how  much  wandering  was  still  to 
be  his.  He  was  ready  to  rest;  the  last  romance  had  indicated 
a  wane  of  power,  and  he  was  clearly  approaching  the  end — of 
his  career,  if  not  of  his  days.  In  this  first  summer  in  The  Way 
side  he  wrote  a  life  of  his  old  friend,  Franklin  Pierce,  who  was 
a  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  The  biography  was  used  as 
campaign  material,  and  Hawthorne  was  criticized  for  stoop 
ing  to  such  work,  but  he  considered  it  not  an  unworthy  thing 
to  use  his  genius  in  his  friend's  behalf.  Upon  his  elec 
tion  Pierce,  in  turn,  appointed  Hawthorne  to  the  Liverpool 
consulate;  Hawthorne  accepted  the  offer,  as  an  opportunity 
for  travel  as  well  as  service,  and  he  arrived  at  his  post  in 
Ny,  1853. 

His  life  abroad  is  written  in  his  note-books.  He  continued 
in  office  until  August  31,  1857,  and  for  the  next  two  years  he 
traveled  and  resided  in  Italy;  after  a  second  brief  stay  in  Eng 
land,  to  complete  The  Marble  Faun,  he  returned  to  Concord 
in  June,  1860.  All  his  important  experiences  are  recorded  in 
his  journal, — the  typical  events  and  interests  of  official  duty, 
the  sight-seeing,  especially  the  acquaintance  he  made  with  art 


266  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

and  architecture,  and  the  contact  in  general  with  a  foreign 
life.  Some  passages  in  his  account,  such  as  the  record  of 
Miss  Delia  Bacon,  which  appears,  condensed,  in  Our  Old 
Home,  in  the  Recollections  of  a  Gifted  Woman,  have  the  acute 
and  illuminating  qualities  of  his  best  work;  indeed  the  Notes 
of  Travel,  as  the  journal  is  now  called,  are  in  some  respects 
the  equivalent  of  a  romance.  Hawthorne  came  to  the  old 
countries  with  his  nature  made  infinitely  sensitive  by  practice 
of  his  art,  and  by  the  discipline  of  life.  His  travel  and  sight 
seeing  was  to  him  preeminently  a  spiritual  experience,  in 
which  his  part  was  to  submit  his  soul  to  the  new  influences, 
and  watch  the  result.  The  notes  become  therefore  a  kind  of 
lyrical  romance,  wherein  the  effect  of  living  is  contemplated 
in  a  characteristically  passive  way.  The  record  of  the  con 
sulate  is  comparatively  uninteresting;  it  is  in  the  same  key  of 
amused  irony  and  final  weariness  as  the  briefer  records  of 
official  life  in  Boston  or  Salem.  Literary  people,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  the  Brownings  and  some  lesser  folk,  Hawthorne  en 
tirely  failed  to  meet,  though  once  he  caught  a  glimpse  of 
Tennyson  at  an  art  exhibition.  He  communed  as  much  as 
possible  with  himself,  and  sought  the  less  obvious  but,  for 
him,  richer  aspects  of  old  world  experience,  when  he  sought 
it  at  all;  if  he  visited  an  ancient  church,  it  is  said,  he  talked 
with  the  sexton  rather  than  with  the  vicar.  But  it  was  him 
self  he  studied,  rather  than  the  place  he  visited.  On  a  second 
visit  to  York  he  writes:  "We  went  to  the  cathedral,  and  no 
sooner  were  we  within  it  than  we  found  how  much  our  eyes 
had  recently  been  educated,  by  our  greater  power  of  appre 
ciating  this  magnificent  interior;  for  it  impressed  us  both  with 
a  joy  that  we  never  felt  before.  Julian  felt  it  too,  and  insisted 
that  the  cathedral  must  have  been  altered  and  improved 
since  we  were  last  here.  But  it  is  only  that  we  have  seen  much 
splendid  architecture  since  then,  and  so  have  grown  in  some 
degree  fitted  to  enjoy  it." 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  267 

It  has  been  said  that  Hawthorne's  remarks  upon  art  and 
architecture  do  not  show  much  insight.  Without  question  he 
was  an  amateur  in  those  fields,  and  his  opinions  frequently, 
if  not  always,  disclose  narrow  judgment  and  perhaps  misun 
derstanding  of  the  form  of  expression.  But  if  his  remarks  do 
not  illuminate  art,  they  do  illuminate  life;  his  wizard  percep 
tions  of  values  of  character  are  written  at  their  best  in  chance 
remarks  upon  what  he  sees  in  the  galleries,  or  upon  some  fine 
ruin.  When  he  reaches  Rome  he  writes,  "  Whatever  beauty 
there  may  be  in  a  Roman  ruin  is  the  remnant  of  what  was 
beautiful  originally;  whereas  an  English  ruin  is  more  beauti 
ful  often  in  its  decay  than  even  it  was  in  its  primal  strength. 
If  we  ever  build  such  noble  structures  as  these  Roman  ones, 
we  can  have  just  as  good  ruins,  after  two  thousand  years,  in 
the  United  States;  but  we  never  can  have  a  Furness  Abbey  or 
a  Kenilworth."  Still  more  acute,  perhaps  because  the  sub 
ject  is  more  directly  human,  is  his  comment  upon  the  Ma 
donnas  of  medieval  art:  "Seeing  the  many  pictures  of  Holy 
Families,  and  the  Virgin  and  Child,  which  have  been  painted 
for  churches  and  convents,  the  idea  occurs,  that  it  was  in  this 
way  that  the  poor  monks  and  nuns  gratified,  as  far  as  they 
could,  their  natural  longing  for  earthly  happiness.  It  was 
not  Mary  and  her  heavenly  Child  that  they  really  beheld,  or 
wished  for;  but  an  earthly  mother  rejoicing  over  her  baby, 
and  displaying  it  probably  to  the  world  as  an  object  worthy  to 
be  admired  by  kings, — as  Mary  does  in  the  Adoration  of  the 
Magi." 

In  spite  of  its  length  one  other  passage  deserves  quotation, 
for  the  fruitfulness  of  its  suggestion;  the  ideas  are  not  new,  but 
they  come  with  strong  appeal  through  the  medium  of  Haw 
thorne's  deep  nature:  "I  have  a  haunting  doubt  of  the  value 
of  portrait-painting;  that  is  to  say,  whether  it  gives  you  a 
genuine  idea  of  the  person  purporting  to  be  represented.  I 
do  not  remember  ever  to  have  recognized  a  man  by  having 


268  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

previously  seen  his  portrait.  ...  It  seems  to  be  the  aim  of 
portrait-painters  generally,  especially  of  those  who  have  been 
most  famous,  to  make  their  pictures  as  beautiful  and  noble 
as  can  anywise  consist  with  retaining  the  very  slightest  re 
semblance  to  the  person  sitting  to  them.  They  seldom  attain 
even  the  grace  and  beauty  which  they  aim  at,  but  only  hit 
some  temporary  or  individual  taste.  Vandyke,  however, 
achieved  graces  that  rise  above  time  and  fashion,  and  so  did 
Sir  Peter  Lely,  in  his  female  portraits;  but  the  doubt  is, 
whether  the  works  of  either  are  genuine  history.  ...  I  ob 
serve,  furthermore,  that  a  full-length  portrait  has  seldom  face 
enough;  not  that  it  lacks  its  fair  proportion  by  measurement, 
but  the  artist  does  not  often  find  it  possible  to  make  the  face 
so  intellectually  prominent  as  to  subordinate  the  figure  and 
drapery.  Vandyke  does  this,  however.  In  his  pictures  of 
Charles  I,  for  instance,  it  is  the  melancholy  grace  of  the  visage 
that  attracts  the  eye,  and  it  passes  to  the  rest  of  the  composi 
tion  only  by  an  effort." 

Without  this  extended  experience  of  works  of  art,  Haw 
thorne  would  hardly  have  written  The  Marble  Faun.  The 
four  years  in  England  were  a  sort  of  preparation  for  what  he 
was  to  find  in  Italy.  The  journal  records  the  stay  in  Paris  and 
the  trip  through  France;  then  came  four  months  in  Rome;  and 
then  Hawthorne  leased  the  villa  of  Montalito  on  the  hill  of 
Bellosguardo,  near  Florence.  The  old  house,  "big  enough  to 
quarter  a  regiment,''  and  so  mysterious  in  some  of  its  parts 
that  it  seemed  haunted,  was  fit  scene  for  the  writing  of  a  ro 
mance.  Here  The  Marble  Faun  was  begun,  and  carried  on 
with  only  such  interruptions  as  came  of  visits  to  the  Brown 
ings,  or  to  Powers,  the  sculptor,  or  to  the  galleries.  The  note 
books  for  this  period  are  very  full,  and  must  have  claimed 
much  time. 

At  the  end  of  the  residence  in  Florence  the  Hawthornes  re 
turned  to  Rome,  where  Una  fell  ill  of  a  fever,  and  all  but  died. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  269 

Somewhat  unnerved  by  this  experience,  the  family  returned 
to  England,  through  France,  and  at  Whitby  and  Redcar  and 
Leamington,  successive  stopping-places,  the  romance  was 
continued,  and  finished  on  November  8,  1859.  The  follow 
ing  spring  it  was  published. 

If  The  Marble  Faun  be  not  Hawthorne's  best  story,  as  it 
certainly  is  not,  it  is  most  characteristic  of  his  mind.  Though 
laid  in  a  foreign  scene,  and  describing  a  foreign  city  and  its 
art  with  a  minuteness  that  renders  it  adaptable  as  a  guide 
book,  it  is  peculiarly  the  product  of  that  side  of  the  Puritan 
nature  which  contemplates  life's  influence  upon  the  soul. 
This  is  Hawthorne's  distinct  field,  and  the  treatment  of  his 
theme  is  as  remarkably  his  own.  For  subject  there  is  a  past 
crime  or  wrong,  wherein  Miriam  is  implicated;  this  secret  is 
left  unexplained,  as  Hester's  first  love  for  Dimmesdale  is  un- 
portrayed.  There  is  an  outward  symbol,  around  which  the 
story  circles, — the  statue  of  the  Faun.  There  is  a  crime  com 
mitted  within  the  limits  of  the  story,  and  its  results,  in  the  souls 
of  the  guilty  and  innocent  alike,  are  the  central  theme. 

The  effect  of  sin  is  the  subject  in  all  of  Hawthorne's  great 
stories;  here  sin  is  studied  in  its  power  to  stain  life,  to  rob  it  of 
innocence.  Donatello  and  Hilda,  in  different  ways — almost 
in  different  worlds — are  ignorant  of  sin.  In  Donatello  the 
impulsive  crime  develops  his  nature,  so  that,  paradoxical  as 
it  seems,  through  it  he  becomes  humanized,  a  living  soul. 
Upon  the  innocent  Hilda  also  the  crime  falls  as  a  great  ex 
perience,  if  not  an  ennobling  one.  But  the  influence  of  the 
murder  is  shown  most  in  the  shadow  it  lays  over  the  joy  of 
youth.  The  fable  of  Donatello's  ancestry  serves  to  explain 
that  marvelous  understanding  he  has  of  birds  and  animals, 
through  which  he  can  inspire  their  confidence  as  though  he 
were  one  of  their  kind;  this  is  the  innocence  of  his  character 
as  we  first  see  it.  Like  Satyrane,  in  The  Faerie  Queene,  whose 
ancestry  is  similar  to  his  own,  Donatello  is  very  brother  to  all 


270 


LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 


harmless,  soulless  creatures.  His  crime  comes  home  to  him 
when  he  calls  to  the  wood  creatures  as  of  old,  and  they  will 
not  approach  his  blood-stained  hands.  "They  know  it!"  he 
repeated,  trembling.  "They  shun  me!  All  nature  shrinks 
from  me,  and  shudders  at  me!  I  live  in  the  midst  of  a  curse, 
that  hems  me  round  with  a  circle  of  fire!  No  innocent  thing 
can  come  near  me."  In  Hilda's  character  the  effect  of 
the  murder  is  more  narrowly  Puritanical,  burdening  her 
conscience  with  sin  not  hers,  destroying  in  part  her  de 
light  in  beauty,  and  substituting  a  deeper  need  of  moral 
truth. 

Of  the  other  two  persons  in  the  small  group  of  the  tragedy, 
Kenyon  is  another  version  of  Coverdale,  in  The  Blithedale 
Romance, — he  is  a  shadow  of  Hawthorne  himself,  looking 
upon  life  and  studying  it,  but  not  greatly  living  it.  Miriam  is 
a  nobler  Zenobia,  or  a  less  womanly  Hester,  as  one  chooses  to 
regard  her.  She  rises  above  Zenobia  through  the  superior 
coherence  of  her  nature,  and  she  gains  importance  from  her 
secret  past  and  her  responsibility  for  the  murder.  That  she 
ever  rises  out  of  her  misery,  as  Hester  rose,  is  not  stated,  and 
her  fate  is  the  more  tragic,  since  her  love  is  an  evil  gift  for 
Donatello,  and  she  feels  it  to  be  so. 

The  sequel  of  the  story  is  uncertain,  as  are  the  conditions 
from  which  the  plot  rises;  Donatello  languishes  in  his  prison, 
and  Miriam,  no  less  unhappy,  wanders  at  large.  Kenyon  and 
Hilda  are  married,  but  they  stand  on  the  edge  of  the  real 
story,  and  only  Hilda  is  involved  in  it.  Thin  and  unreal  as 
the  tale  may  seem,  "artfully  and  airily  removed  from  our 
mundane  sphere,"  as  its  author  hoped,  it  has  power  to  grip 
imaginative  readers  with  its  central  focus  upon  the  soul, 
fresh-stained  with  sin.  Like  all  of  Hawthorne's  major  work, 
it  has  a  sad  outlook.  The  sin  is  not  forgiven;  only  the  inno 
cent  Hilda  knows  the  power  of  absolution.  The  romance  is 
an  old  man's  book,  which  views  youth  with  affection  and  re- 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  271 

gret,  noting  its  swiftly  earned  experience  and  sorrow.    "The 
world  grows  old,  and  growing  old,  grows  sad." 

X 

In  June,  1860,  Hawthorne  took  up  his  life  again  at  Con 
cord,  enlarged  his  house,  renewed  old  friendships,  and  en 
joyed  the  honor  that  comes  at  the  end  of  a  worthy  career.  His 
career  was  indeed  at  an  end.  He  published  in  1863  a  portion 
of  his  notes  on  England  in  a  volume  called  Our  Old  Home, 
and  he  contributed  a  not  very  happy  article  on  the  war,  to  the 
A  tlantic  Monthly,  but  his  power  was  gone.  Almost  against  his 
will  he  set  to  work  at  a  new  story;  The  Dolliver  Romance,  its 
final  form,  is  only  the  fragment  of  an  attempt.  Although  the 
theme  had  been  in  his  mind  for  years,  a  sense  of  his  incapacity 
to  finish  it  held  him  back.  His  letters  to  his  publisher,  Field, 
show  how  dark  the  presentiment  was.  "There  is  something 
preternatural,"  he  says,  "in  my  reluctance  to  begin.  I  linger 
at  the  threshold,  and  have  a  perception  of  very  disagreeable 
phantasms  to  be  encountered  if  I  enter.  I  wish  God  had  given 
me  the  faculty  of  writing  a  sunshiny  book."  A  little  later  he 
says,  "I  don't  see  much  probability  of  my  having  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Romance  ready  so  soon  as  you  want  it.  There 
are  two  or  three  chapters  ready  to  be  written,  but  I  am  not 
yet  robust  enough  to  begin,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  should  never 
carry  it  through."  Still  later  he  puts  his  fears  into  stronger 
terms:  "I  hardly  know  what  to  say  to  the  public  about  this 
abortive  Romance,  though  I  know  pretty  well  what  the  case 
will  be.  I  shall  never  finish  it.  ...  I  cannot  finish  it  unless 
a  great  change  comes  over  me;  and  if  I  make  too  great  an 
effort  to  do  so,  it  will  be  my  death." 

Somehow  it  does  not  surprise  us  that  Hawthorne  had  this 
eery  foreknowledge  of  his  end.  His  genius  had  dwelt  so  much 
among  the  shadows  of  life  that  the  last  great  shadow  found 
him  ready  and  unafraid.  He  grew  very  quiet  but  very  cheer- 


272  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

ful  too,  as  though  he  wished  to  comfort  the  affectionate  house 
hold  for  the  grief  soon  to  come.  Once  he  was  persuaded  to 
visit  Holmes,  and  his  friend  was  frightened  at  his  condition, 
so  serious  did  it  seem  to  the  trained  physician.  Yet  the  dis 
ease  was  baffling;  it  appeared  to  be  connected  with  the  brain; 
it  seemed  at  times  to  be  connected  more  closely  with  the 
spirit,  as  though  Hawthorne  were  tired  of  this  world  or  had 
not  the  will  to  live. 

At  the  end  of  March  he  was  persuaded  to  undertake  a 
Southern  journey  with  his  old  friend  and  publisher,  W.  D. 
Ticknor,  who  wrote  daily  letters  to  Mrs.  Hawthorne  about 
the  invalid's  progress.  But  the  journey  came  to  a  most  tragic 
end  in  Philadelphia,  where  Ticknor  suddenly  died.  Haw 
thorne  summoned  all  his  strength  to  perform  the  duties  nat 
urally  devolving  upon  him,  but  when  the  funeral  had  been 
arranged  for,  and  he  returned  to  his  home,  he  was  clearly  a 
dying  man.  The  shock  of  this  terrible  experience  had  com 
pletely  loosened  his  own  hold  on  life. 

As  it  was  thought  that  nothing  but  change  of  scene  could 
keep  him  alive,  his  old  friend  Pierce  planned  a  trip  with  him 
into  New  Hampshire,  which  they  undertook  together  in  the 
beginning  of  May,  1864.  When  Hawthorne  said  farewell  to 
his  family  he  probably  knew  it  was  for  the  last  time.  On  the 
eighteenth  of  May  the  travelers  reached  Plymouth,  and 
stopped  at  the  Pemigewasset  House.  The  rest  of  the  story  is 
told  in  Pierce's  letter  to  Field,  written  on  the  nineteenth:  "He 
retired  to  rest  soon  after  nine  o'clock,  and  soon  fell  into  a 
quiet  slumber.  In  less  than  half  an  hour  he  changed  his  posi 
tion,  but  continued  to  sleep.  I  left  the  door  open  between  his 
bedroom  and  mine — our  beds  being  opposite  to  each  other — 
and  was  asleep  myself  before  eleven  o'clock.  The  light 
continued  to  burn  in  my  room.  At  two  o'clock  I  went  to 

H 's  bedside;  he  was  apparently  in  a  sound  sleep,  and  I 

did  not  place  my  hand  upon  him.  At  four  o'clock  I  went  into 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  273 

his  room  again,  and,  as  his  position  was  unchanged,  I  placed 
my  hand  upon  him,  and  found  that  life  was  extinct.  I  sent, 
however,  immediately  for  a  physician,  and  sent  for  Judge 
Bell  and  Colonel  Hibbard,  who  occupied  rooms  upon  the 
same  floor,  and  near  me.  He  lies  upon  his  side,  his  position 
so  perfectly  natural  and  easy,  his  eyes  closed,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  realize,  while  looking  upon  his  noble  face,  that  this  is  death. 
He  must  have  passed  from  natural  slumber  to  that  from  which 
there  is  no  waking  without  the  slightest  movement." 

He  was  buried  at  Concord,  in  Sleepy  Hollow,  on  the  twenty- 
fourth.  At  his  grave  stood  practically  all  the  men  then  living 
who  were  famous  in  American  literature — Longfellow,  Emer 
son,  Lowell,  and  Holmes.  The  scene  is  immortalized  in  Long 
fellow's  tender  verses.  The  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke, 
who  had  married  Hawthorne  twenty-two  years  before,  now 
read  the  service  over  his  grave,  and  among  the  flowers  on  his 
coffin  lay  a  wreath  of  apple-blossoms  from  the  Old  Manse, 
and  the  manuscript  of  his  unfinished  romance. 

In  his  special  field  Hawthorne  has  no  rivals,  nor  even  com 
petitors;  it  is  therefore  hard' to  indicate  his  place  in  American 
literature.  He  is  concerned  chiefly  with  the  inner  life  of  the 
soul,  and  at  his  best  h£  ranks  high  among  all  masters  of  spirit 
ual  tragedy.  In  so  far  as  his  preoccupation  with  spiritual 
things  distinguishes  him,  he  represents  American  Puritan 
ism;  he  does  not,  however,  represent  it  completely.  He  fails 
to  portray  its  energy  in  action  and  its  cheerfulness, — the  ele 
ments  of  character  that  Mrs.  Stowe  delights  in  and  illustrates. 
That  Hawthorne  did  not  himself  lack  these  human  qualities 
is  proved  by  his  journals  and  home  records,  which  show  him 
to  have  been  true  man,  courageous  and  lovable,  and  lighted 
with  the  divine  fire. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE 


WHEN  Mrs.  Stowe  as  a  child  first  heard  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  the  well-known  phrases  appealed  to  her,  she 
says,  as  though  they  still  were  a  call  to  arms  in  the  cause  of 
freedom.  "The  heroic  element  was  strong  in  me,  having 
come  down  by  ordinary  generation  from  a  long  line  of  Puritan 
ancestry,  and  just  now  it  made  me  long  to  do  something,  I 
knew  not  what :  to  fight  for  my  country,  or  to  make  some  dec 
laration  on  my  own  account." 

The  longing  to  do  something,  to  make  some  declaration  on 
their  own  account,  was  a  familiar  aspiration  to  the  Beecher 
race.  They  had  the  capacity  of  devotion  to  a  cause,  and  the 
two  famous  generations  lived  in  years  rich  with  opportunity 
for  their  gift.  In  them  the  passion  for  reform  seemed  a  nor 
mal  thing;  it  sprang  from  no  ignorance,  nor  from  a  neurotic 
dissatisfaction  with  life,  but  from  the  human  sympathies  of 
great  hearts  in  full-blooded  bodies.  Their  lives  were  more 
than  busy,  and  their  accomplishment  was  immense,  yet  one 
is  struck  by  the  ease  with  which  they  worked;  they  were  rapt 
or  troubled  by  their  visions,  but  the  practical  in  their  hands 
had  a  magic  solution.  Dreamers  as  they  were,  they  were 
accustomed  to  success. 

Some  of  this  impression  of  facility,  of  toil  lightly  borne,  is 
the  effect  of  a  strong  vein  of  humor  which  made  likeable  the 
firm  Puritanical  purposes  of  most  of  the  family, — a  humor 
somewhat  like  Lincoln's,  perhaps  belonging  by  a  mysterious 
compensation  to  many  of  the  overworked  spirits  of  those 

275 


276  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

shadowed  years.  At  least  it  is  more  a  quality  of  modern 
America  than  of  Puritanism;  it  makes  the  Beechers — those 
who  had  it — still  seem  of  to-day,  though  their  temper  and 
some  of  their  ideas  have  the  stamp  of  an  early  time. 

Devotion  to  a  cause;  immense — apparently  facile — accom 
plishment;  and  humor; — it  is  easy  to  see  these  traits  in  Har 
riet  Beecher  Stowe.  With  but  little  amplification  they  would 
serve  as  a  complete  summary  of  her  character,  and  as  an 
adequate  explanation  of  her  career.  She  was  altogether  a 
Beecher,  the  most  fortunate  child  of  the  gifted  family,  for 
tunate  in  her  inheritance,  in  her  opportune  service,  and  in  her 
reward. 

Harriet  Elizabeth  Beecher  was  born  June  14,  1811,  at 
Litchfield,  Connecticut.  Her  father  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman 
Beecher,  her  mother  his  first  wife,  Roxana  Foote.  Of  the 
five  older  children,  Catherine,  the  eldest,  had  most  influence 
on  Harriet's  character  and  career.  The  famous  brother, 
Henry  Ward,  was  born  in  1813.  Her  mother  died  when 
Harriet  was  but  four  years  old,  yet  her  remarkable  nature 
was  treasured  in  almost  precocious  memories.  One  suspects 
that  the  sweetness  in  the  children's  character  was  the  mother's 
gift,  as  one  recalls  the  incident  of  the  prize  tulip  bulbs  which 
the  children  ate  for  onions,  and  their  mother's  gentle  dealing 
with  them.  When  she  died,  Henry  was  found  digging  im 
petuously  in  the  garden,  as  he  explained,  "going  to  Heaven 
to  find  mamma."  Mrs.  Stowe  herself  records  that  what 
Augustine  St.  Clare  says  in  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  of  his  mother's 
influence,  applies  absolutely  to  Roxana  Foote  and  her  chil 
dren. 

After  her  mother's  death  Harriet  was  taken  to  visit  her 
grandmother  at  Nut  Plains,  near  Guilford,  Connecticut. 
The  visit  was  remembered  for  the  influence  of  her  aunt 
Harriet  Foote,  a  person  of  pronounced  character,  devoted  to 
the  teachings  of  the  English  Church  and  the  Declaration  of 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  277 

Independence.  Strength  of  character  seems  to  have  come  to 
Mrs.  Stowe  from  both  sides  of  the  family.  She  was  made  to 
stand  up  with  her  cousin  Mary  and  the  black  servant  girl  and 
the  bound  boy,  and  recite  the  catechism;  it  struck  her  child 
ish  observation  that  the  two  servants  stood  behind  her  cousin 
and  herself,  because,  as  her  aunt  said,  they  should  "order 
themselves  lowly  and  reverently  to  all  their  betters. "  The 
other  memory  of  this  long  winter  visit  was  of  her  grand 
mother's  familiarity  with  the  Bible.  Mrs.  Foote's  reading 
was  of  that  sturdy  old-fashioned  kind  that  found  pleasure  in 
Dr.  Johnson's  works,  next  to  religious  books;  and  the  child 
remembered  the  vividness  with  which  the  characters  lived 
before  her  grandmother,  as  though  they  were  personal  ac 
quaintances  of  hers. 

These  first  years  of  Harriet's  life  reached  their  natural 
climax  in  her  discovery  of  books.  She  early  learned  to  read, 
and  her  curiosity  was  immense.  Her  father's  library,  for 
biddingly  theological,  was  romantic  at  least  to  the  eye;  she 
had  that  visual  memory  of  books,  of  "  their  friendly,  quiet 
faces,"  which  marks  the  born  reader.  Her  patriotic  fervor 
was  fed  early  by  Cotton  Mather's  Magnolia — "  stories  that 
made  me  feel  the  very  ground  I  trod  on  to  be  consecrated  by 
some  special  dealing  of  God's  Providence."  And  one  day 
she  found,  at  the  bottom  of  a  barrel  of  old  sermons,  a  copy 
of  the  Arabian  Nights,  which  opened  to  her  once  for  all  a 
world  of  pure  imagination. 

In  1817  Lyman  Beecher  married  Miss  Harriet  Porter,  of 
Portland,  Maine.  His  family  were  fortunate  in  their  step 
mother.  She  was  a  conscientious  woman,  and  reinforced 
the  seriousness  of  purpose  which  already  distinguished  the 
Beecher  tradition.  Her  first  child,  Frederick,  born  in  1818, 
died  two  years  later.  Isabella  was  born  in  1822,  and  became 
Harriet's  especial  care;  the  thought  that  she  was  no  longer  the 
youngest  girl  in  the  family  matured  her,  and  from  this  time 


278  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

she  seems  to  have  shown  the  precocious  side  of  her  genius. 
Much  of  her  rapid  development  was  due  to  her  teacher  in 
English  at  the  Litchfield  Academy,  John  Brace,  who  had 
unusual  success  in  teaching  his  pupils  to  write.  His  secret 
apparently  was  to  give  the  children  something  to  say,  to  in 
spire  them  with  ideas  and  enlarge  those  they  had.  Under 
such  constructive  training  it  is  little  wonder  that  a  child  of 
real  genius  should  advance  rapidly,  but  the  essay  that  Harriet 
wrote  when  twelve  years  old  and  read  in  public  at  the  school 
exhibition,  on  the  question  "  Can  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul 
be  proved  by  the  light  of  Nature,"  is  still  an  astonishing  pro 
duction.  The  Beecher  facility  marks  the  flowing  style;  the 
clearness  and  energy  of  the  argument,  and  above  all  the  strong 
oratorical  element  in  the  composition,  are  significant  of  one 
destined,  like  all  her  race,  to  plead  a  cause. 

From  1824  to  1832  Harriet  spent  most  of  her  time  with  her 
sister  Catherine,  who  had  established  a  school  in  Hartford. 
The  years  were  outwardly  quiet,  but  they  saw  Harriet  through 
one  of  those  religious  crises  that  a  sensitive  nature  in  those 
days  was  likely  to  suffer.  Her  naturally  bright  nature  was 
set,  by  the  clumsy  questions  of  a  well-meaning  pastor,  to  con 
sider  whether,  if  the  universe  were  destroyed,  she  could  be 
happy  with  God  alone,  and  whether  God  was  not  justified  in 
leaving  her  to  be  miserable  in  her  sins.  The  result  was  in 
tensified  by  her  sensitive  imagination,  and  these  years  were 
clouded  for  her,  till  with  the  wise  help  of  her  sister  Catherine 
and  her  brother  Edward,  she  assured  herself  in  a  sweeter 
theology. 

In  the  meantime  the  family  had  left  Litchfield.  In  1826 
Dr.  Beecher  had  become  pastor  of  the  Hanover  Street  Church, 
in  Boston.  In  1832  he  removed  to  Cincinnati,  as  President 
of  the  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  and  Harriet  and  Catherine 
joined  the  family  there. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  279 

II 

Lane  Seminary  was  located  at  Walnut  Hills,  a  pleasant 
spot  well  out  of  Cincinnati,  and  in  seasons  of  rain  and  muddy 
roads,  almost  inaccessible;  but  the  distance  proved  later  an 
advantage,  when  it  served  as  a  defense  against  the  riotous 
pro-slavery  mobs  in  the  city.  The  Seminary  was  poorly 
equipped  in  all  but  the  men  who  conducted  it;  they  carried 
into  a  rough  country  in  wild  days  the  best  of  Puritan  tradi 
tion,  in  religion  and  democracy,  and  the  Beecher  capacity  for 
success  in  practical  ways  seems  to  have  been  with  the  whole 
company. 

It  was  at  Walnut  Hills  that  Harriet  Beecher  made  the  seri 
ous  beginning  of  her  writing,  and  the  life  itself  there  had  the 
traits  that  were  to  color  her  genius.  It  was  essentially  a  heroic 
life,  a  true  missionary  effort  to  forward  righteousness;  it  was 
so  far  out  of  her  youthful  memories  of  New  England  as  to 
have  in  it  some  strain  of  missionary  exile,  and  to  give  a  halo 
to  the  life  left  behind.  Harriet's  letters  at  first  show  the  in 
tellectual  stimulus  of  the  new  experiences;  she  was  busy  in  the 
school  that  Catherine  and  she  were  starting,  and  rough  as  the 
world  about  her  seemed,  it  was  at  least  novel.  But  there  was 
little  in  the  life  to  sustain  such  a  nature  when  the  novelty 
should  cease,  and  the  reaction  came,  apparently,  in  1833. 

It  was  in  writing  and  in  literary  pursuits  that  she  found  her 
recreation.  The  Western  Monthly,  a  local  magazine,  offered  a 
prize  of  fifty  dollars  for  the  best  short  story.  Harriet  Beecher 
won  it  with  the  story  Uncle  Lot,  later  republished  in  the 
volume  of  New  England  sketches  known  as  The  Mayflower. 
Most  of  these  pieces  were  written  for  the  Semi-Colon  Club, 
a  literary  society  that  took  its  name  from  their  half-Columbus- 
like  zest  in  the  discovery  of  new  worlds  of  pleasure.  The 
whole  volume  represents  a  loving  memory  of  New  England 
scenes — idealized  perhaps  by  exile,  and  a  complete  devotion 


280  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

to  New  England  ideas, — both  traits  constant  in  her  later 
work;  and  in  detail  the  stories,  though  immature,  are  signi 
ficant  in  many  ways  of  the  sort  of  genius  that  was  to  make  her 
fame. 

(jjncle  Lot  is  a  realistic  study  of  New  England  character, 
mingled  with  much  religious  idealism,  almost  propaganda. 
The  combination  of  realism  and  idealism  remains  in  all  Mrs. 
Stowe's  writing,  but  in  this  first  story  they  are  more  noticeable 
because  they  seem  incongruous;  they  do  not  blend  in  the 
slightest,  and  for  the  modern  reader  at  least  the  religious 
strain  is  unconvincing.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  the  origin  of 
this  double  pattern  in  Mrs.  Stowe's  work.  The  idealizing 
tendency,  usually  religious,  was  her  inheritance,  and  the  prod 
uct  of  her  surroundings;  it  had  its  own  appeal  to  the  readers 
of  the  time.  The  realistic  element  springs  from  her  proper 
genius,  a  peculiar  ability  to  transfer  life  about  her  to  paper, 
with  the  fidelity  that  comes  from  affection  rather  than  from 
analytical  stuoV.)  ^Vliat  she  herself  would  probably  have 
thought  most  Important  in  Uncle  Lot,  is  the  sudden  conver 
sion  of  the  somewhat  shallow  and  volatile  James  Benton  to 
the  Christian  Ministry.  But  her  genius  is  shown  in  the 
clever  touches  of  New  England  peculiarity — the  typical  post- 
office;  the  fixed,  conservative  life  of  the  village;  the  old  people, 
who  grow  as  old  as  they  can,  and  then  last;  and  the  character 
of  Uncle  Lot  himself,  however  crudely  sketched — his  rough 
rebellion  against  any  apparent  cooperation  with  God  or  man, 
and  most  of  all,  his  great  sorrow  at  his  son's  death.  Imma 
ture  as  the  story  is,  and  alienating  as  its  religiosity  now  seems, 
it  interests  by  its  truth,  its  fervor,  and  its  dignity;  the  heroic 
flame  already  burns  in  it.  Technically  its  cleverness  is  largely 
verbal;  the  structure  is  amateurish,  but  the  language  is  deft 
and  fluent^ 

The  same  criticism  applies  to  all  the  pieces  in  the  volume — 
for  example,  to  the  sketches  called  The  Sabbath,  a  series  of 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  281 

pictures  designed  to  show  the  bad  results  of  departure  from 
the  Puritan  observance  of  the  day.  Here  again  the  least  doc 
trinal  section  is  the  best— the  picture  of  the  grim  discipline 
of  godliness  that  the  children  feared,  dreading  the  Saturday 
sunset,  and  finding  their  first  theological  hopelessness  in  the 
promise  that  heaven  would  be  an  eternal  Sabbath.  These 
pictures  show  Mrs.  Stowe's  chief  trait — that  love  of  life,  of  all 
living  things,  that  made  realism  with  her  a  thing  of  zest  and 
delight,  and  kept  even  her  religious  idealism  human.  She 
can  portray  the  essential  charm  and  value  of  Uncle  Phineas* 
rigid  observance,  but  she  sees  with  as  keen  eyes  the  useless- 
ness  of  it  for  children,  and  she  praises  it  on  other  grounds. 
"The  slave  of  worldliness,  who  is  driven,  by  perplexing  busi 
ness  or  adventurous  speculation,  through  the  hours  of  a  half- 
kept  Sabbath  to  the  fatigues  of  another  week,  might  envy  the 
unbroken  quiet,  the  sunny  tranquillity,  which  hallowed  the 
weekly  rest  of  my  uncle."  Puritanism  fills  the  picture,  but 
it  is  a  spirit  that  flames,  a  quiet  that  is  rapture — not  the  still 
mellow  world  of  Hawthorne's  art. 

Ill 

On  January  6,  1836,  Harriet  Beecher  married  Professor 
Calvin  E.  Stowe,  her  father's  friend  and  colleague  in  Lane 
Seminary.  The  following  summer  he  spent  in  Europe  as 
school  commissioner  of  Ohio,  while  she  paid  a  brief  visit  to 
the  East,  that  served  to  freshen  her  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  of 
enlightenment  and  education.  On  Professor  Stowe's  return 
Lane  Seminary  rapidly  became  a  center  of  the  antislavery 
movement  in  the  West,  and  in  spite  of  increasing  household 
cares,  Mrs.  Stowe  had  her  part  in  every  exciting  event.  It 
has  remained  a  marvel  that  she  could  share  the  intellectual 
life  about  her  and  continue  her  writing  in  the  midst  of  homely 
tasks  that  would  have  worn  out  many  a  stronger  woman.  The 
six  children  that  were  born  to  her  in  the  next  twelve  years 


282  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

made  literary  composition  truly  a  matter  of  heroism.  A 
friend  describes  a  typical  scene,  in  which  Mrs.  Stowe  was  per 
suaded  to  complete  a  story  by  dictation,  with  a  baby  on  her 
lap,  a  great  baking  in  process  in  the  kitchen,  a  "new  girl"  to 
be  looked  after,  and  preparations  for  house-cleaning  to  be 
made. 

"In  ten  minutes  she  was  seated;  a  table  with  flour,  rolling 
pin,  ginger,  and  lard  on  one  side,  a  dresser  with  eggs,  pork, 
and  beans  and  various  cooking  utensils  on  the  other,  near 
her  an  oven  heating,  and  beside  her  a  dark-skinned  nymph, 
awaiting  orders. 

"  'Here,  Harriet,'  said  I,  'you  can  write  on  this  atlas  in 
your  lap;  no  matter  how  the  writing  looks,  I  will  copy  it.' 

"  'Well,  well,'  she  said,  with  a  resigned  sort  of  amused  look. 
'Mina,  you  may  do  what  I  tell  you,  while  I  write  a  few 
minutes,  till  it  is  time  to  mould  up  the  bread.  Where  is  the 
inkstand  ? ' 

"  'Here  it  is,  close  by,  on  the  top  of  the  tea-kettle,'  said  I. 

"At  this,  Mina  giggled,  and  we  both  laughed  to  see  her 
merriment  at  our  literary  proceedings.  I  began  to  overhaul 
the  portfolio  to  find  the  right  sheet. 

"  'Here  it  is,'  said  I.  'Here  is  Frederick  sitting  by  Ellen,' 
glancing  at  her  brilliant  face,  and  saying  something  about 
"guardian  angel,"  and  all  that — you  remember?' 

"  'Yes,  yes,'  said  she,  falling  into  a  muse,  as  she  attempted 
to  recover  the  thread  of  her  story. 

"  *  Ma'am,  shall  I  put  the  pork  on  the  top  of  the  beans?1 
asked  Mina. 

"  'Come,  come,'  said  Harriet,  laughing,  'You  see  how  it  is. 
Mina  is  a  new  hand  and  cannot  do  anything  without  me  to 
direct  her.  We  must  give  up  the  writing  for  to-day.' 

"  'No,  no;  let  us  have  another  trial.  You  can  dictate  as 
easily  as  you  can  write.  Come,  I  can  set  the  baby  on  this 
clothes-basket  and  give  him  some  mischief  or  other  to  keep 
him  quiet;  you  shall  dictate  and  I  will  write.  Now,  this  is  the 
place  where  you  left  off;  you  were  describing  the  scene  be 
tween  Ellen  and  her  lover;  the  last  sentence  was,  "  Borne  down 
by  the  tide  of  agony,  she  leaned  her  head  on  her  hands,  the 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  283 

tears  streamed  through  her  fingers,  and  her  whole  frame  shook 
with  convulsive  sobs."    What  shall  I  write  next  ? ' 

"  'Mina,  pour  a  little  milk  into  this  pearlash,'  said  Harriet. 

"  'Come/  said  I,  'The  tears  streamed  through  her  fingers, 
and  her  whole  frame  shook  with  convulsive  sobsl  What 
next?' 

"Harriet  paused  and  looked  musingly  out  of  the  window, 
as  she  turned  her  mind  to  her  story.  '  You  may  write  now,' 
said  she,  and  she  dictated  as  follows: 

"  'Her  lover  wept  with  her,  nor  dared  he  again  touch  the 
point  so  sacredly  guarded' — Mina,  roll  that  crust  a  little 
thinner.  'He  spoke  in  soothing  tones' — Mina,  poke  the  coals 
in  the  oven. 

******** 

"  'I  know  my  duty  to  my  children.  I  see  the  hour  must 
come.  You  must  take  them,  Henry;  they  are  my  last  earthly 
comfort.' 

"  'Ma'am,  what  shall  I  do  with  these  egg-shells  and  all  this 
truck  here  ? '  interrupted  Mina. 

"  'Put  them  in  the  pail  by  you,'  answered  Harriet. 

"  'They  are  my  last  earthly  comfort,'  said  I,  'What  next?' 

"She  continued  to  dictate,— 

"  '  You  must  take  them  away.  It  may  be — perhaps  it  must 
be — that  I  shall  soon  follow,  but  the  breaking  heart  of  a  wife 
still  pleads  "a  little  longer,  a  little  longer."  ' 

"  'How  much  longer  must  the  gingerbread  stay  in?'  in 
quired  Mina. 

"  'Five  minutes,'  said  Harriet. 

"  '  A  little  longer,  a  little  longer'  I  repeated  in  a  dolorous 
tone,  and  we  burst  into  a  laugh." 

Yet  in  spite  of  these  discouragements,  it  was  during  the 
early  days  of  her  busy  married  life  that  Mrs.  Stowe  saw  her 
destiny  as  a  literary  woman  unfold,  and  her  family  came  to 
look  upon  her  as  their  prophetess  with  the  gift  of  written 
speech.  In  1842  her  husband  wrote  to  her:  "My  dear,  you 
must  be  a  literary  woman.  It  is  so  written  in  the  book  of  fate. 
Make  all  your  calculations  accordingly.  Get  a  good  stock  of 
health  and  brush  up  your  mind.  Drop  the  E.  out  of  your 


284  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

name.  It  only  encumbers  it  and  interferes  with  the  flow  and 
euphony.  Write  yourself  fully  and  always  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  which  is  a  name  euphonious,  flowing,  and  full  of  mean 
ing." 

This  gradual  sense  of  her  destiny  as  a  literary  woman  was 
an  important  preparation  for  the  writing  of  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin;  Mrs.  Stowe  came  to  her  great  book  with  some  con 
sciousness  of  professional  skill;  its  success  was  as  little  a 
matter  of  accident  as  such  things  can  be.  Indeed,  it  seems 
now  as  if  Mrs.  Stowe's  life  from  the  year  1833,  before  her 
marriage,  was  one  rich  preparation  for  her  masterpiece.  In 
that  year  she  made  a  visit  to  Kentucky,  in  a  slave-holding 
homestead  that  was  the  model  of  the  Shelby's  place  in  the 
novel.  Her  companion  during  the  visit  said  afterward  that 
Harriet  apparently  did  not  notice  much  that  happened;  she 
sat  as  though  in  thought  most  of  the  time.  But  many  inci 
dents  found  their  place  later  in  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  incidents 
that  she  must  have  absorbed  with  that  completeness  with 
which  a  mind  in  a  high  state  of  emotion  appropriates  the  most 
trivial  circumstance. 

This  Southern  visit  gave  Mrs.  Stowe  practically  her  only 
pleasant  glimpse  of  slavery,  and  it  proves  her  breadth  of  mind 
that  she  could  make  so  much  that  is  happy  in  her  novel  out 
of  experience  so  scanty.  Her  chief  knowledge  of  slavery  was 
gained  in  the  bitter  struggle  in  the  West,  where  the  Southern 
colonists  advanced  their  cause  by  riot  and  murder,  and  where 
the  pitiful  efforts  of  black  fugitives  to  gain  their  freedom  was 
a  familiar  occurrence  before  her  very  eyes.  It  was  the  hunted 
slave,  or  the  family  separated  by  legal  sale,  that  took  hold  of 
Mrs.  Stowe's  imagination,  and  became  the  main  theme  of  her 
book;  this  was  what  she  knew  most  directly  of  the  slave  sys 
tem.  In  the  little  school  that  she  conducted  for  her  own 
family,  she  included  some  colored  children,  who  had  no  other 
opportunity  for  instruction.  One  day  the  mother  of  one  of 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  285 

these  brought  the  startling  news  that  the  child,  never  having 
been  emancipated,  was  to  be  sold  at  auction  to  settle  an  es 
tate.  The  money  was  quickly  raised  to  redeem  the  child,  but 
the  incident  left  in  Mrs.  Stowe's  memory  one  at  least  of  the 
horrible  realities  of  slavery.  In  1839  she  had  for  a  servant  a 
young  colored  girl,  who  had  been  brought  by  her  mistress 
from  Kentucky  into  Ohio,  and  left  there.  By  the  Ohio  law 
she  was  free.  It  was  learned,  however,  that  the  girl's  former 
master  was  about  to  seize  her  and  take  her  back  into  slavery. 
Professor  Stowe  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher  armed  themselves 
one  night  and  drove  the  girl  to  safety.  The  farmer  with  whom 
she  was  left,  John  Van  Zandt,  had  been  a  slave-owner  in 
Kentucky,  but  had  freed  his  slaves  and  removed  to  Ohio, 
where  he  became  the  protector  of  such  fugitives  as  this  girl; 
he  was  the  original  of  John  Van  Trompe  in  chapter  IX  of 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  and  the  sheltering  of  Eliza  there  de 
scribed  is  of  course  founded  on  this  real  incident. 

But  Mrs.  Stowe  was  to  know  slavery  in  more  fatal  aspects. 
A  fierce  war  was  waged  by  the  pro-slavery  mobs  against 
open  advocates  of  emancipation,  and  the  few  courageous 
editors  who  upheld  the  unpopular  side  were  in  danger  of 
their  lives.  The  printing  shops  were  burned,  the  presses  de 
stroyed,  and  the  type  thrown  into  the  river.  In  Kansas  the 
free  state  settlers  dredged  for  the  type,  as  a  matter  of  senti 
ment,  and  loaded  them  in  their  guns.  It  was  during  this  dan 
gerous  period  of  the  attacks  on  the  newspapers  that  Lane 
Seminary,  well  known  for  its  emancipation  tendencies,  was 
indebted  for  its  safety,  as  Mrs.  Stowe  says,  to  its  distance  from 
the  city,  and  to  the  depth  and  tenacity  of  Cincinnati  mud. 
Many  good  friends  of  the  Seminary  fared  badly.  Dr.  Gama 
liel  Bailey  had  his  printing  office  destroyed,  and  was  "  in 
duced"  to  leave  that  part  of  the  country.  Mr.  J.  G.  Birney, 
his  assistant,  had  been  a  property  owner  in  Alabama,  but  had 
liberated  his  slaves  and  had  joined  Dr.  Bailey  in  founding 


286  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS      - 

their  antislavery  journal,  the  Philanthropist.  Mrs.  Stowe's 
comment  on  the  attacks  on  this  paper  shows  her  heroic  vein, 
the  fighting  spirit  in  which  she  and  her  family  faced  this 
crisis, — "  For  my  part  I  can  easily  see  how  such  proceedings 
may  make  converts  to  abolitionism,  for  already  my  sympa 
thies  are  strongly  enlisted  for  Mr.  Birney,  and  I  hope  he  will 
stand  his  ground  and  assert  his  rights.  The  office  is  fire 
proof,  and  inclosed  by  high  walls.  I  wish  he  would  man  it 
with  armed  men  and  see  what  can  be  done.  If  I  were  a  man  I 
would  go,  for  one,  and  take  good  care  of  at  least  one  window." 
But  for  the  Beechers  the  climax  of  these  newspaper  attacks 
came  with  the  murder  of  J.  P.  Lovejoy,  the  Illinois  editor,  who 
was  besieged  in  his  office  by  a  Missouri  mob  and  shot.  Mrs. 
Stowe's  brother,  the  Rev.  Edward  Beecher,  was  Lovejoy's 
intimate  friend,  and  at  first  it  was  falsely  reported  that  he  also 
was  killed.  Hitherto  the  Beechers,  though  radically  opposed 
to  slavery,  had  felt  much  of  the  prevalent  caution  towards  the 
out-and-out  abolitionists;  but  this  murder,  so  nearly  concern 
ing  them,  added  flame  to  their  ardor.  Edward  Beecher's 
wife,  who  urged  Mrs.  Stowe  to  use  her  pen  against  slavery, 
dated  her  own  enthusiasm  from  this  time;  "I  had  been  nour 
ishing  an  antislavery  spirit,"  she  writes,  "since  Lovejoy  was 
murdered  for  publishing  in  his  paper  articles  against  slavery 
and  intemperance,  when  our  home  was  in  Illinois." 

While  these  tragic  experiences  were  preparing  Mrs.  Stowe 
for  her  great  task,  she  had  been  training  her  literary  gift  not 
only  by  constant  writing  but  by  the  best  of  reading.  The 
novels  of  Walter  Scott  had  come  into  the  Beecher  family  in  a 
somewhat  dramatic  manner,  which  Mrs.  Stowe,  a  child  at  the 
time,  never  forgot.  In  1822  at  the  death  of  Professor  Alexan 
der  Metcalf  Fisher,  of  Yale,  who  had  been  engaged  to  Cather 
ine  Beecher,  his  library  came  to  her,  and  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher 
examined  the  books  to  see  if  they  were  "safe," — for  Pro 
fessor  Fisher  was  thought  even  by  his  betrothed  to  be  theolog- 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  287 

ically  unsound.  Among  the  books  was  a  set  of  Scott,  and  Dr. 
Beecher  seems  to  have  begun  with  Ivanhoe,  for  he  suddenly 
appeared  with  it  in  his  hand,  saying,  "I  have  always  said 
that  my  children  should  not  read  novels,  but  they  must  read 
these."  The  great  romancer's  stories  of  generous  action 
fitted  well  the  peculiar  genius  of  Mrs.  Stowe;  it  would  be  in 
teresting  to  know  how  deeply  she  was  indebted  to  him  for 
the  effectiveness  of  her  scenes,  the  frequent  realism  of  her 
humor,  the  historical  sentiment  in  such  books  as  The  Minis 
ter's  Wooing.  In  1850,  after  the  birth  of  her  son  Charles,  she 
read  all  of  Scott's  novels  in  order;  a  few  months  later  she  be 
gan  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin. 

In  1843  The  Mayflower,  the  collection  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  early 
sketches,  had  been  published  by  the  Harpers.  In  September, 
1849,  Professor  Stowe  accepted  a  chair  at  Bowdoin  College, 
and  his  family  removed  to  Brunswick  in  the  next  April,  before 
he  himself  was  free  to  accompany  them.  The  responsibil 
ities  and  difficulties  of  moving  into  the  new  home  fell  on 
Mrs.  Stowe,  and  for  a  time  she  must  have  done  little  or  no 
writing.  But  the  winter  of  1850  brought  forth  Henry  Clay's 
compromise,  which  Daniel  Webster  defended  on  March  7  in 
the  speech  so  disastrous  to  his  reputation  in  New  England. 
The  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,  by  which  citizens  even 
in  free  states  were  required  to  assist  in  the  recovery  of  slave 
"  property,"  was  the  final  wrong  that  kindled  Mrs.  Stowe's 
indignation  to  a  prophetic  flame.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Mrs. 
Edward  Beecher  wrote  to  her, — "Hattie,  if  I  could  use  a  pen 
as  you  can,  I  would  write  something  that  would  make  this 
whole  nation  feel  what  an  accursed  thing  slavery  is."  When 
Mrs.  Stowe  came  to  these  words  in  the  letter,  she  rose  to  her 
feet  in  sudden  emotion  and  said, — "I  will  write  something:  I 
will  if  I  live."  This  was  in  December.  In  February,  1851, 
during  the  Communion  Service  at  the  college  church,  Mrs. 
Stowe  experienced  an  inspiration  not  perhaps  unlike  the  sud- 


288  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

den  visions  of  the  old  prophets;  she  saw  the  scene  of  Uncle 
Tom's  death,  and  the  reality  of  it  moved  her  to  tears.  On  her 
return  to  the  house  she  wrote  out  the  scene  and  read  it  to  her 
family. 

From  this  germ  the  story  grew  rapidly,  though  the  first 
chapter  was  not  completed  for  two  months.  The  thorough 
ness  with  which  Mrs.  Stowe  mastered  available  documents  on 
the  slavery  question  is  shown  in  the  Key  to  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,  published  a  year  after  the  novel.  But  more  than  the 
gathering  of  documents  went  to  the  making  of  this  book;  the 
theme  possessed  the  heart  of  the  writer  so  thoroughly  that, 
as  she  said,  she  could  not  control  the  story;  it  wrote  itself. 
When  the  first  instalment  appeared  in  the  National  Era, 
June  5,  1851,  Mrs.  Stowe  expected  to  write  but  a  brief  narra 
tive,  a  few  chapters.  But  the  story  unfolded  itself,  much  as 
Scott's  best  stories  took  their  destinies  into  their  own  hands, 
and  the  last  instalment  did  not  come  until  April  i,  1852.  The 
National  Era  was  a  most  proper  medium  for  such  a  publica 
tion;  its  editor  was  that  Dr.  Bailey  whom  the  Beechers  had 
known  in  the  stormy  Ohio  days,  and  who  had  been  forced  to 
leave  Cincinnati  because  of  his  antislavery  writings.  For  the 
story  as  a  serial  Mrs.  Stowe  received  three  hundred  dollars. 
On  the  thirteenth  of  March,  1852,  Professor  Stowe  arranged 
with  John  P.  Jewett,  a  Boston  publisher,  for  the  appearance 
of  the  novel  in  book  form,  and  it  was  published  on  the  twen 
tieth  of  that  month,  before  its  last  serial  instalment  had  ap 
peared.  On  the  first  day  three  thousand  copies  were  sold;  a 
third  edition  was  issued  on  the  first  of  April;  within  the  year 
over  three  hundred  thousand  copies  had  been  sold  in  America; 
in  England,  where  the  book  could  not  be  protected  by  copy 
right,  eighteen  different  publishing  houses  were  busy  supply 
ing  the  demand  during  the  first  year.  In  Great  Britain  and 
the  colonies  the  number  of  copies  published  was  estimated  at 
one  and  a  half  millions. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  289 

IV 

The  purpose  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  was  to  attack  slavery, 
not  to  attack  the  South.  Mrs.  Stowe  had  the  wisdom  to  see  in 
the  institution  a  national  rather  than  a  sectional  wrong;  much 
of  the  power  of  the  book  lay  in  this  breadth  of  view.  It  is  use 
less  to  deny  that  a  story  written  under  such  circumstances  and 
with  such  intentions  is  a  "purpose"  novel,  but  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  differs  from  others  of  the  kind  by  so  much  restraint 
and  so  evident  a  desire  for  fairness,  that  it  is  almost  tempting 
now  to  consider  it  a  realistic  study  of  life  among  the  lowly,  be 
longing  in  the  broad  humanitarian  movement  of  the  century. 
Remembering  the  violent  aspects  that  the  slavery  cause  had 
worn  before  Mrs.  Stowe's  eyes  in  Ohio,  and  considering  the 
mass  of  unpleasant  material  she  had  in  the  documents  pub 
lished  as  the  key  to  the  novel,  we  must  admire  the  gentle 
ness  with  which  the  Southern  slave-owner  is  pictured,  and  the 
skill  with  which  the  significant  wrongs  of  slavery  are  distin 
guished  and  softened.  Mrs.  Stowe  felt,  she  says,  that  to  por 
tray  the  institution  as  it  existed  would  make  the  book  too 
terrible  to  read;  she  therefore  chose  to  represent  only  its 
brighter  aspects.  That  she  was  in  command  of  the  worst 
facts  of  slavery  is  undeniable,  yet  the  book  makes  its  appeal 
through  emotional  suggestion,  rather  than  by  morbid  exhibi 
tions  of  horror;  how  much  it  gains  by  this  reserve  need  not  be 
pointed  out.  The  same  artistic  impulse,  or  political  wisdom, 
whichever  it  was,  made  the  best  characters — St.  Clare,  the 
Shelbys — Southerners,  and  the  villain  Legree,  a  Northerner. 
Perhaps  the  most  surprising  thing  in  the  book,  considering 
Mrs.  Stowe's  New  England  origin,  is  the  fidelity  with  which 
she  portrays  in  Miss  Ophelia  the  New  Englanders'  lack  of 
practical  charity,  which  prevented  them  from  understanding 
or  caring  for  the  negro  in  the  concrete,  although  mentally  they 
were  devoted  to  the  ideal  of  emancipation.  If  Uncle  Tom's 


290  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Cabin  helped  to  bring  on  the  great  war,  at  least  it  recorded^ 
the  Northern  inability  to  understand  the  negro,  and  the 
Southern  appreciation  of  him,  which  seems  to  hold  true  to  this 
day.  Mrs.  Stowe's  own  readiness  to  treat  the  enslaved  race 
as  equals  was  exceptional;  in  the  veracious  portrait  of  Miss 
Ophelia  she  sought  to  rouse  the  majority  of  Northerners, 
whose  philanthropy  for  the  negro,  then  as  now,  was  at  some 
thing  more  than  arm's-length;  the  contrast  to  Miss  Ophelia's 
failure  to  improve  the  negro  "by  dint  of  the  utmost  hammer 
ing  and  vehement  effort"  she  intended  to  be  Eva,  who  won 
the  allegiance  of  the  servants  by  love. 

Among  the  Southerners  themselves  Mrs.  Stowe  makes  a 
sharp  distinction,  all  the  sharper  because  in  the  simple  art  of 
the  book  there  is  place  only  for  broad  contrasts.  St.  Clare  and 
his  brother  are  the  clearest  illustrations,  the  one  ideally  dem 
ocratic  in  spirit,  though  without  energy  to  act,  the  other  aristo 
cratic  and  hard  in  temper,  with  the  hasty  pride  of  one  who  fits 
in  blindly  with  his  own  days.  It  is  significant  that  the  evil  in 
his  brother's  character  was  fostered,  St.  Clare  thought,  by  the 
renegade  Vermonter,  Stubbs,  who  as  his  father's  overseer  had 
taught  the  family  how  to  drive  slaves.  The  contrast  between 
the  brothers  is  continued  in  their  children.  Eva,  inheriting 
the  best  of  her  father's  character  and  nothing  of  her  mother's, 
is  indeed  a  spoiled  child,  but  uses  her  privileges  in  spontaneous 
acts  of  kindness.  Henrique  shows  the  worst  effect  of  slave- 
owning  on  the  character  of  children;  naturally  more  generous 
than  his  father,  he  is  fast  becoming  as  irresponsible  a  despot 
in  his  small  world,  impatient  and  cruel  with  his  servants, 
though  charmingly  chivalrous  toward  his  girl  cousin- — the 
very  paradox  of  the  old  Southern  character.  It  is  obvious  that 
in  Eva  Mrs.  Stowe  was  portraying  an  ideal  character;  yet  she 
as  well  as  Henrique  suffers  from  the  slave  system.  She  is  a 
spoiled  child,  as  the  best  child  would  be  with  slaves  to  com 
mand,  and  her  very  goodness,  as  her  worldly  mother  pointed 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  291 

out,  made  spoiled  children  of  the  slaves.  Perhaps  the  essen 
tial  wrong  of  the  system  is  here  more  clear  than  Mrs.  Stowe 
designed.  The  division  of  opinion  between  the  St.  Clare 
brothers  is  paralleled  in  other  places, — in  the  two  clergymen 
on  the  Mississippi  boat,  one  of  whom  quotes  "  Cursed  be 
Canaan"  and  the  other  the  golden  rule, — and  in  the  second 
conversation  on  the  boat,  where  the  presence  of  the  slaves 
furnishes  a  natural  subject  for  discussion  and  opinion.  But 
in  these  cases  the  difference  of  view  is  simply  stated,  not  made 
the  basis  for  character  portraits. 

The  structure  of  the  novel  shows  the  same  restraint  and 
breadth  that  distinguish  its  general  attitude.  The  plot  is 
double,  yet  very  simple.  The  two  main  horrors  of  slavery, 
the  two  common  incidents  in  it  that  Mrs.  Stowe  rightly 
thought  would  appeal  to  the  sympathy  of  the  whole  world, 
were  the  separation  of  slave  families  by  sale,  and  the  hunting 
of  fugitive  slaves.  The  first  of  these  causes  is  really  the  heart 
of  the  book,  for  it  is  the  sale  of  Eliza  and  her  boy  and  the 
threatened  sale  of  her  husband  that  persuades  them  to  run 
away;  none  of  the  chief  characters  in  the  story  become  fugi 
tives  simply  for  their  freedom.  But  although  the  separation 
of  the  slave  family  is  the  initial  subject,  it  was  the  fugitive 
slave  that  Mrs.  Stowe  had  perhaps  her  most  immediate  sym 
pathy  for;  if  men  could  actually  see  their  fellows,  as  she  had 
seen  them,  in  the  desperate  attempt  to  be  free,  their  hearts 
would  be  touched.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  pur 
pose  of  the  book  is  contained  in  this  account  of  the  antiabo- 
litionist  senator  in  chapter  IX:  "His  idea  of  a  fugitive  was 
only  an  idea  of  the  letters  that  spell  the  word, — or,  at  the 
most,  the  image  of  a  little  newspaper  picture  of  a  man  with  a 
stick  and  a  bundle,  with  'Ran  away  from  the  Subscriber' 
under  it.  The  magic  of  the  real  presence  of  distress, — the 
imploring  human  eye,  the  frail,  trembling  human  hand,  the 
despairing  appeal  of  helpless  agony, — these  he  had  never 


292  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

tried.  He  had  never  thought  that  a  fugitive  might  be  a  help 
less  mother,  a  defenceless  child, — like  that  one  which  was  now 
wearing  his  lost  boy's  little  well-known  cap."  The  fortunes 
of  Eliza  and  her  husband  are  typical  of  the  experience  of  those 
human  beings  who  could  not  bear  to  lose  their  children 
through  sale,  and  against  whom  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  was 
passed.  The  majority  of  the  slave  population,  who  sub 
mitted  to  their  lot  with  characteristic  patience,  are  repre 
sented  by  Uncle  Tom.  The  irony  of  the  situation  for  the 
philanthropic  master  and  mistress  is  that  they  are  compelled 
to  sell  their  slaves  to  a  man  they  despise.  What  might  be  the 
fortune  of  any  slave,  no  matter  how  faithful,  under  a  system 
which  regarded  him  simply  as  property,  was  told  in  Tom's 
life;  his  only  alternative,  flight,  was  represented  in  the  story 
of  Eliza  and  George  Harris.  The  two  stories  are  thus  bound 
together  logically,  and  artistically  they  have  a  kind  of  unity  in 
the  beginning,  where  Tom  and  Eliza  are  sold  from  the  same 
place,  and  in  the  end,  where  Cassie,  Tom's  friend,  turns  out 
to  be  Eliza's  mother,  and  it  is  George  Selby  who  discovers 
the  fact. 

In  this  simple  scheme  Mrs.  Stowe  gives  a  picture  of 
slavery  as  an  institution,  of  the  condition  to  which  all  who 
participate  in  it  are  reduced.  When  we  consider  the  warmth 
of  her  sympathies,  we  wonder  that  she  did  such  justice  to  the 
shortcomings  of  the  negro  race.  To  her  mind  slavery  was 
responsible  for  practically  everything  except  color  that  dis 
tinguished  the  black  man  from  the  white,  yet  her  accuracy 
of  observation  resulted  in  a  portrait  easily  recognized  as  true, 
though  it  might  be  explained  by  other  causes  than  slavery. 
It  is  significant  that  the  slave  who  does  not  run  away,  but 
submits  even  to  torture  with  a  quixotic  patience,  is  the  full- 
blooded  negro,  Uncle  Tom.  It  is  he  also  who  has  most 
religion.  He  is  so  far  an  ideal  of  what  the  full-blooded  negro 
might  be,  that  even  in  the  novel  he  is  unique.  Eliza  and  her 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  293 

husband,  Cassie  and  Madame  de  Thoux,  all  who  show  a 
desire  for  independence  and  ability  to  get  it,  are  more  white 
than  black.  Otherwise  the  slaves  are  degraded  by  their  con 
dition.  St.  Clare's  servants  are  degraded  by  his  mistaken 
leniency,  until  even  in  the  story  they  are  insufferable.  Le- 
gree's  slaves  are  turned  into  beasts  by  the  evil  influence  of 
his  own  character,  so  that  Sambo  and  Quimbo  and  Cassie, 
in  different  ways,  are  hideous  products  of  what  must  have 
been  no  uncommon  tyranny.  In  the  heartlessness  of  Legree's 
black  slaves  toward  each  other, — the  mutual  treachery  of 
Sambo  and  Quimbo,  the  satisfaction  of  the  field  hands  when 
Cassie  was  reduced  to  work  among  them,  their  delight  at 
the  prospect  of  a  slave  hunt, — in  these  traits  of  the  negro 
character  Mrs.  Stowe  was  dealing  with  the  volatile  childish 
ness  of  the  race,  for  which  slavery  perhaps  is  not  wholly 
responsible.  The  truth  of  the  portraiture  is  more  convincing 
at  this  point  than  the  direct  indictment  of  the  institution. 
Sam  and  Andy,  on  Mrs.  Shelby's  place,  are  quite  as  irre 
sponsible  as  Sambo  and  Quimbo,  though  their  childlike 
natures  have  been  shielded  from  evil;  their  behavior  in  the 
pursuit  of  Eliza,  though  it  is  goodhearted  and  in  the  end 
proves  her  salvation,  is  yet  of  a  levity  to  shock  even  Mrs. 
Shelby,  who  sympathized  with  their  intentions.  The  total 
impression  that  the  black  race  leaves  in  the  story  is  of  a 
simple  childishness,  with  the  handicaps  and  compensations 
of  such  undevelopment;  and  the  artistic  defect  of  the  book 
is  that  when  Mrs.  Stowe  attributes  all  of  that  undevelop 
ment  to  slavery  she  must  leave  her  story  and  argue,  and  the 
argument  does  not  convince.  This  weakness  is  worst  felt 
in  the  last  pages,  where  George  Harris  contemplates  the 
future  of  "his  race";  the  reader  knows  that  Uncle  Tom,  not 
he,  is  the  representative  of  the  negro,  and  as  the  story  shows, 
their  two  careers  would  be  far  apart,  in  either  slavery  or 
freedom.  It  was  this  weakness  in  the  story  that  Dickens 


294  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

criticized.  "  If  I  might  suggest  a  fault  in  what  has  so  charmed 
me,"  he  wrote,  "it  would  be  that  you  go  too  far  and  seek  to 
prove  too  much.  The  wrongs  and  atrocities  of  slavery  are, 
God  knows,  case  enough.  I  doubt  there  being  any  warrant 
for  making  out  the  African  race  to  be  a  great  race  or  for 
supposing  the  future  destinies  of  the  world  to  lie  in  that 
direction." 

The  irresponsibility  of  the  negro  character  is  portrayed 
especially  in  Topsy,  the  whimsical  problem  who  "just 
growed."  Perhaps  no  person  in  the  book  is  more  often 
referred  to.  The  contrast  between  the  child  and  Miss  Ophelia 
is  one  of  the  best  in  the  story,  as  it  is  not  only  striking  in  it 
self  but  typical  of  the  paralyzing  astonishment  that  over 
takes  the  Anglo-Saxon  nature  on  its  first  experience  of  negro 
ways.  Topsy  gains  a  certain  interest  from  the  large  amount 
of  attention  showered  upon  her  by  Eva  and  Miss  Ophelia; 
there  is  little  in  her  nature  but  perversity,  and  the  depth  of 
her  affection  for  Eva  does  not  convince  the  reader  as  readily 
as  it  does  Mrs.  Stowe  that  she  ever  became  a  useful  member 
of  society. 

The  problem  of  slavery  was  too  real  a  thing,  and  had 
come  too  near  Mrs.  Stowe's  notice,  for  her  to  treat  it  other 
wise  than  realistically.  But  the  poetical,  idealizing  strain  in 
her  genius,  fostered  by  reading  Scott,  showed  itself  in  those 
parts  of  the  story  where  she  was  drawing  least  on  actual 
experience.  Cassie  is  of  the  race  of  Scott's  wildly  romantici 
heroines — Flora  Mclvor  and  Norma;  the  mystery  of  her  past, 
her  almost  superhuman  power,  her  astonishing  influence  ovef 
Legree,  the  strain  of  insanity  or  fanaticism  in  her,  are  molded 
from  Scott's  material  by  weaker  hands.  The  one  negro  trait 
she  seems  to  possess  is  a  love  of  masquerading  and  show ;  she 
makes  the  most  of  the  garret  mystery  before  she  runs  away— 
or  rather,  walks  off — for  she  is  perfectly  free  to  go  and  come  at 
all  times,  and  apparently  could  have  escaped  when  she  would. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  295 

But  in  spite  of  the  childishness  of  her  devices — the  bottle  in 
serted  through  the  board  to  provide  ghostly  shrieks  for  Le- 
gree's  benefit,  and  the  white  sheet  for  midnight  apparitions, — 
she  is  a  striking  figure,  and  represents  the  demonic  strain  in 
the  African,  to  which  Mrs.  Stowe  recurred  in  Dred.  It  is  to 
the  romantic  quality  of  her  imagination  also  that  we  owe  the 
two  most  stirring  scenes  in  the  book,  Eliza's  escape  over  the 
ice,  and  the  defeat  of  the  pursuers  among  the  rocks,  when  Tom 
Loker  was  shot.  Both  incidents  were  founded  on  actual  oc 
currences;  they  are  told,  not  only  with  a  sympathy  that  makes 
them  seem  perfectly  real,  but  with  an  emotional  elevation 
which  gives  them  the  quality  of  romance. 

Far  more  important  than  the  indication  of  the  negro  taste 
for  the  supernatural,  the  mysterious,  is  the  varied  portrayal 
of  the  black  man's  capacity  for  religion.  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin 
is  more  than  anything  else  a  religious  book.  It  was  the  au 
thor's  great  pride  that  her  story  had  been  the  means  of  saving 
many  souls.  The  religion  of  Eva  may  be  rather  lightly  dis 
missed  by  the  modern  reader;  the  death  scene,  like  the  death 
of  little  Nell,  made  its  own  appeal  to  an  earlier  taste,  which 
now  seems  mawkish;  and  we  object  to  the  killing  off  of  Eva 
just  for  the  religious  effect,  since  there  is  no  stronger  reason 
why  she  should  die.  But  the  religion  of  Uncle  Tom  is  con 
vincing  throughout.  It  deepens  as  he  suffers,  and  it  gives 
the  book  its  point  as  a  rebuke  to  the  Christianity  that  held 
men  as  other  than  immortal  souls.  Uncle  Tom's  death,  like 
Eva's,  is  necessary  for  the  effect;  without  his  torments  as 
proof  of  his  faith  he  might  have  been  somewhat  of  a  bore; 
even  as  it  is,  he  is  perhaps  too  perfect,  too  infallible, — a 
kind  of  negro  Natty  Bumpo,  who  has  got  religion;  but  Mrs. 
Stowe  knew  only  too  well  that  the  horror  of  his  fate  was  based 
on  fact,  not  on  literary  effect,  and  she  convinces  us  of  the 
genuineness  of  his  religion.  She  is  careful  to  distinguish  be 
tween  the  emotional,  imaginative  religion  of  the  true  negro, 


296  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

and  the  comparatively  cold  faith,  even  skepticism,  of  those  of 
mixed  blood ;  and  perhaps  the  most  solemn  religious  appeal  is 
made  through  the  character  of  a  white  man,  where  St.  Clare 
is  conscience-stricken  by  the  description  of  the  last  judgment. 
Breadth  of  view  and  charity  in  the  treatment  of  an  un 
settled  problem;  truth  in  the  portraiture  of  negro  character, 
with  its  faults  as  well  as  virtues;  a  sense  of  actuality  in  the 
general  representation  of  slavery;  and  a  strong  and  genuine 
religious  feeling, — these  are  the  qualities  that  make  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  a  great  book.  Its  lack  of  literary  subtlety  has 
been  to  its  advantage;  its  simple  structure  is  not  too  simple 
for  its  direct  message.  To  show  American  slavery  as  it  was, 
Mrs.  Stowe  said,  was  her  purpose;  but  translated  into  specific 
terms  of  her  deep  human  interest,  that  meant  to  show  the 
slave  as  he  was, — in  the  tragedy  of  his  divided  family,  in  the 
tragedy  of  his  efforts  for  freedom,  in  the  tragedy  of  his  pa 
tience.  The  picture  she  drew,  whatever  may  be  its  literary 
faults,  has  been  generally  accepted  by  mankind,  and  no  other 
portrait  of  the  same  subject  is  likely  to  take  its  place. 

V 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  was  received  with  fairness  by  many 
Southerners,  but  it  could  not  be  expected  that  those  who  ear 
nestly  championed  slavery  would  approve  of  it.  As  the  influ 
ence  of  the  book  gathered  and  made  itself  felt,  a  counter  attack 
formed  rapidly.  It  was  said  that  Mrs.  Stowe  had  misrepre 
sented  the  facts,  wilfully  or  otherwise;  that  slavery  as  she  pic 
tured  it  did  not  exist;  that  the  slaves  were  in  fact  contented 
with  their  lot.  At  least  one  novel  was  written  to  show  another 
side  of  the  question — Aunt  Phillis'  Cabin,  or  Southern  Life  as 
If  Is;  but  even  in  the  South  such  books  had  little  success. 
Of  two  columns  of  this  story  printed  in  the  Southern  Press,  a 
clergyman  of  South  Carolina  wrote,  "The  editor  might  have 
saved  himself  being  writ  down  as  an  ass  by  the  public  if  he 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  297 

had  withheld  his  nonsense.  If  the  two  columns  are  a  fair  speci 
men  of  Mrs.  Eastman's  book,  I  pity  her  attempt  and  her 
name  as  an  author."  But  serious  literary  defenses  of  slavery 
would  not  have  been  unreasonable,  nor  would  they  have 
troubled  Mrs.  Stowe.  The  personal  attacks  upon  her  char 
acter,  however,  were  of  a  nature  quite  unworthy  of  the  chiv 
alrous  South;  evidently  the  Legrees  were  getting  into  print. 
From  an  Alabama  paper  came  this  not  exceptionally  harsh 
criticism:  "The  plan  for  assaulting  the  best  institutions  in  the 
world  may  be  made  just  as  rational  as  it  is  by  the  wicked 
(perhaps  unconsciously  so)  authoress  of  this  book.  The 
woman  who  wrote  it  must  be  either  a  very  bad  or  a  very  fanat 
ical  person.  For  her  own  domestic  peace  we  trust  no  enemy 
will  ever  penetrate  into  her  household  to  pervert  the  scenes 
he  may  find  there  with  as  little  logic  or  kindness  as  she  has 
used  in  her  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.''1 

Mrs.  Stowe  had  too  much  confidence  in  her  cause  to  be 
seriously  annoyed  at  such  vague  and  futile  assaults,  but  she 
felt  it  due  to  herself  to  publish  the  documents  and  experi 
ences  upon  which  she  had  based  her  picture  of  slavery.  The 
Key  to  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  1853,  was  not,  perhaps,  stronger 
than  the  novel,  as  Mrs.  Stowe  expected  it  to  be;  but  it  pre 
sented  a  mass  of  material  which  could  not  be  explained 
away,  and  which  must  have  had  its  effect  on  the  popular 
mind.  Its  only  literary  interest  is  the  proof  it  gives  of  Mrs. 
Stowe' s  skilful  or  fortunate  restraint  in  selecting  incidents 
for  the  novel.  She  is  rightly  credited  with  little  literary  fine 
ness,  and  a  general  indifference  to  literary  structure;  but  in 
her  one  great  novel  her  instinctive  choice  of  what  would  be 
immediately  and  permanently  effective,  considering  all  she 
might  have  written  and  the  emotional  excitement  in  which  she 
wrote,  is  entirely  remarkable.  9 

Meanwhile  she  was  finding  practical  opportunity  for  work 
against  slavery  that  would  have  confirmed  her  in  her  im- 


298  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

pressions  of  the  evil,  if  she  had  needed  any  reassurance.  In 
1852,  in  the  Spring,  she  visited  her  brother,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  in  Brooklyn,  and  there  interested  herself  in  the  Ed- 
monsons,  a  slave  family  that  the  great  preacher  had  once  be 
fore  served  well.  In  1848,  Emily  and  Mary  Edmonson  at 
tempted  to  escape  from  slavery,  were  arrested,  and  were  sold 
for  the  New  Orleans  market.  Their  father,  a  free  man,  came 
North  to  raise  the  amount  asked  for  them,  $2,250.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  found  the  old  man  on  his  door-step,  took  him 
to  Plymouth  Church,  and  by  the  eloquence  of  his  appeal 
raised  the  entire  sum  that  evening. 

Now  two  other  members  of  the  Edmonson  family  were  to 
be  sold,  and  the  mother,  a  slave  woman,  came  North  in  the 
desperate  hope  of  imitating  her  husband's  success.  At  Mr. 
Beecher's  home  she  found  Mrs.  Stowe,  who  was  so  deeply 
touched  by  the  age  and  the  devout  character  of  the  slave 
mother  that  she  undertook  to  raise  the  price  of  the  children, 
or  pay  it  herself.  She  then  started  a  subscription,  which 
Jenny  Lind  and  her  husband  headed,  and  as  the  amount  to 
be  raised  this  time  was  only  twelve  hundred  dollars,  she  ac 
complished  her  purpose  in  three  or  four  weeks. 

During  this  visit  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  her  husband  was  called 
to  a  professorship  in  the  Theological  Seminary  at  Andover, 
and  she  took  charge  of  one  more  removal  and  setting  up  of  the 
home.  The  life  at  Andover  was  to  prove  altogether  to  her 
taste — in  a  New  England  community  of  the  best  traditions, 
with  the  adequate  comforts  her  literary  success  had  made 
possible,  and  with  the  society  of  cultured  men  and  women;  it 
was  a  marked  change  from  the  unlovely  Ohio  days, — Mrs. 
Stowe,  true  Puritan,  even  doubted  if  it  was  right  for  her  to 
enjoy  such  happiness:  "I  am  almost  afraid  to  accept  it,"  she 
wrote,  "and  should  not,  did  I  not  see  the  hand  that  gives  it 
all,  and  know  that  it  is  both  firm  and  true."  But  it  may  be 
questioned  now  whether  the  residence  at  Andover  was  of  ad- 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  299 

vantage  to  Mrs.  Stowe's  writing.  She  had  been  bred  among 
theologians,  and  was  most  at  home  in  the  religious  atmo 
sphere.  In  a  novel  of  a  great  cause,  a  plea  for  humanity,  the 
religious  strain  went  naturally  with  the  sublime  subject;  but 
there  was  danger  that  in  less  lofty  writing  it  might  become  a 
mannerism.  Whether  or  not  Mrs.  Stowe  became  too  habit 
ually  the  preacher,  the  religionist,  in  her  later  work,  is  prob 
ably  a  matter  of  taste;  her  religion  was  too  fervid  and  sincere 
to  degenerate  into  mannerism.  But  it  was  unfortunate  at 
least  that  at  the  moment  of  her  great  success,  when  she  was 
open  to  more  influences  than  at  any  time  before  in  her  some 
what  provincial  life,  she  should  have  returned  to  what  seems 
to  have  been  an  almost  exclusively  theological  atmosphere. 
A  little  more  experience  of  the  world  might  have  saved  her 
later  from  the  well-intended  but  too  credulous  defense  of 
Lady  Byron.  With  all  respect  for  the  seminary  community, 
one  feels  a  certain  sinking  of  the  heart  on  reading  this  de 
scription  of  the  secular  amusements  of  the  gifted  author  of 
the  most  popular  book  in  America, — "Last  evening  a  num 
ber  of  us  climbed  Prospect  Hill,  and  had  a  most  charming 
walk.  Since  I  came  here  we  have  taken  up  hymn-singing  to 
quite  an  extent,  and  while  we  were  all  up  on  the  hill  we  sang 
*  When  I  can  read  my  title  clear.'  It  went  finely." 

In  April,  1853,  Mrs.  Stowe  sailed  for  England  with  her 
husband  and  her  brother  Charles.  She  had  been  invited  to 
make  the  voyage  by  the  Antislavery  Society  of  Glasgow,  and 
many  similar  organizations  invited  her  to  meet  with  them; 
she  was  treated  as  the  authorized  ambassador  of  the  cause, 
and  few  Americans  have  had  such  a  reception  in  the  old 
country.  Her  letters  give  vivid  descriptions  of  the  entire  trip; 
their  tone  is  one  of  absolute  happiness  and  enjoyment,  and 
one  wonders  if  she  ever  again  experienced  such  light-hearted 
pleasure.  Nothing  but  her  own  nature,  simple  and  true, 
could  have  taken  her  unspoiled  through  s.uch  an  ordeal  of 


300  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

flattery  and  homage.  When  she  landed  at  Liverpool  she  was 
met  by  a  great  crowd,  that  stood  silent,  apparently  because 
it  was  Sunday,  while  she  passed  through.  In  the  hospitable 
English  home  near  Liverpool,  where  she  was  entertained  for 
a  few  days,  she  met  the  foremost  people  of  the  city,  and  had 
her  taste  of  real  lionizing.  Her  own  account  of  her  entrance 
into  Scotland  is  full  of  homely  thrills,  for  to  her  as  to  so  many 
travelers,  the  country  of  romance  and  canniness  made  its 
peculiarly  direct  appeal.  When  she  neared  the  border  she 
and  her  companions  sang  almost  hysterically  the  Scotch  airs 
they  knew,  since  they  would  "never  come  into  Scotland  for  the 
first  time  again."  They  recognized  famous  parts  of  the  land 
scape,  and  fell  to  recalling  Scott's  novels,  that  had  filled  the 
land  for  them  with  memories.  But  at  one  small  station  where 
the  train  stopped  in  the  dark,  Mrs,  Stowe  had  the  greeting 
that  perhaps  touched  her  most;  a  crowd  of  simple  folk  were 
waiting  to  speak  to  her,  for  love  of  her  book,  and  finding  out 
her  carriage,  they  reached  through  the  window  to  shake  her 
hand  and  to  say  "Ye  're  welcome  to  Scotland."  "I  shall 
never  forget  the  thrill  of  those  words,"  she  writes,  "nor  the 
'  Gude  night.' " 

Her  Scotch  experiences  were  all  much  alike;  in  Glasgow, 
Edinburgh,  Aberdeen,  and  Dundee  she  was  charmingly  en 
tertained  by  her  admirers,  and  in  each  place  the  public  seemed 
determined  to  make  her  at  home  in  their  city,  as  Scotchmen 
know  how  to  do.  They  were  at  the  train  to  greet  her  when  she 
came,  and  to  wish  her  God-speed  when  she  went;  and  they  had 
enormous  gatherings  in  her  honor.  A  national  penny  offer 
ing,  amounting  to  a  thousand  pounds,  was  collected  and  pre 
sented  to  her  at  Edinburgh,  to  be  used  in  America  for  the 
slaves;  the  contributors  were  people  of  all  classes  who  had 
read  and  loved  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  Mrs.  Stowe's  picture 
was  on  exhibition  in  all  the  shops,  and  she  was  delighted  when 
one  small  boy  in  Edinburgh,  trying  to  distinguish  her  in  the, 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  301 

crowd,  suddenly  called  to  a  comrade,  "Heck,  that's  her; 
see  the  courts!"  She  remembered  also  the  gigantic  Scotch 
farmer,  one  of  the  Duke  of  Argyll's  men,  who  asked  to  be 
presented  to  her,  because  he  had  read  her  book  and  would 
walk  six  miles  to  see  her  any  day.  But  for  all  the  brightness 
of  these  days,  it  was  not  in  her  serious  nature  to  miss  the 
moral  of  it;  she  left  Scotland  realizing  the  enormous  influence 
a  work  of  fiction  might  exert,  and  determined  to  use  that 
power  conscientiously  in  the  cause  of  humanity. 

From  Scotland  she  went  to  London.  Her  reception  in  Eng 
land  was  as  cordial  as  in  the  north  country,  but  it  was  from 
the  men  of  letters  and  the  aristocracy,  rather  than  from  the 
public.  She  met  Dickens,  Gladstone,  Macaulay,  Kingsley, 
and  Hallam,  to  name  but  a  few,  and  in  an  unlucky  hour  she 
met  Lady  Byron,  who  won  her  heart  by  a  few  remarks  "on 
the  present  religious  aspect  of  England, — remarks  of  such 
quality  as  one  seldom  hears."  She  visited  Kossuth,  on  the 
outskirts  of  London,  and  came  away  happy  with  his  parting 
benediction.  At  Stafford  House  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland 
invited  a  remarkable  group  of  the  most  brilliant  people  in 
English  society  to  meet  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  at  the  close  of  the 
evening  presented  her  with  a  gold  bracelet,  shaped  like  the 
slave's  shackle,  with  the  dates  of  the  abolition  of  the  slave- 
trade  and  slavery  in  England,  and  the  words  "We  trust  it  is 
a  memorial  of  a  chain  that  is  soon  to  be  broken." 

These  honors,  like  the  Scotch  tributes,  left  Mrs.  Stowe  as 
modest  about  her  achievements  as  she  was  when  a  child  in 
Litchfield.  She  hardly  dwells  longer  on  them  in  her  letters 
than  on  the  humors  of  her  experience, — her  repeating  Gray's 
Elegy  in  a  churchyard  near  Windsor  for  the  poet's  sake,  and 
finding  later  that  it  was  the  wrong  churchyard ;  and  especially 
her  ordering  a  dress  from  a  dressmaker,  innocently  believing 
that  in  London  the  dressmaker  was  a  trusted  member  of 
society,  as  in  a  Maine  village, — only  to  learn  from  an  uproar 


302  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

in  the  public  press  that  she  had  patronized  a  manager  of 
sweatshops.  After  three  months  of  uneventful  sight-seeing  on 
the  Continent,  she  returned  to  America  in  September.  Her 
record  of  the  trip  was  published  in  Sunny  Memories,  1854, 
a  collection  of  letters  written  during  the  journey  or  just  after; 
the  title  is  true  to  the  spirit  in  which  she  had  made  her  first 
acquaintance  with  foreign  lands. 

On  her  return  to  America  Mrs.  Stowe  naturally  occupied  a 
conspicuous  position  in  the  growing  crusade  against  slavery; 
the  public  recognition  abroad  of  her  services  added  even  to  the 
prestige  of  her  book  at  home.  She  found  innumerable  op 
portunities  awaiting  her,  and  into  all  she  threw  herself  with 
characteristic  enthusiasm,  finding  good  use  for  the  money  in 
trusted  to  her  for  the  benefit  of  the  slaves,  and  writing  when 
ever  a  word  from  her  could  bear  fruit.  Of  this  minor  writing 
the  most  important  was  an  eloquent  appeal  to  the  women  of 
America  to  use  their  influence  on  the  side  of  freedom  in  the 
coming  national  crisis.  The  main  argument  was  based  on  the 
degrading  effect  of  slavery  upon  the  white  family.  Though 
the  appeal  was  necessarily  brief,  it  indicated  the  slightly 
different  ground  from  which  she  was  planning  the  next  attack 
on  slavery.  This  was  her  novel  Dred,  which  appeared  in  the 
spring  of  1856.  Though  it  is  now  a  forgotten  book,  at  least 
in  comparison  with  its  great  predecessor,  it  had  almost  as 
great  a  success  at  first;  Queen  Victoria  was  not  alone  in  pre 
ferring  it  to  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin. 

VI 

In  the  earlier  novel  Mrs.  Stowe  had  given  a  general  picture 
of  slavery,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  slave.  In  Dred  she 
undertook  to  show  the  pernicious  effect  of  the  system  upon 
the  white  man, — upon  the  aristocratic  owner  and  the  poor 
white  squatter  alike.  In  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  the  strongest 
appeal  had  been  made,  perhaps  unintentionally,  through 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  303 

those  characters  who  were  more  white  than  black,  yet  suffered 
the  full  misery  of  slavery  along  with  the  less  ambitious  and 
less  sensitive  negro.  It  is  this  cruel  mixing  of  the  races,  which 
left  the  inhuman  fathers  the  right  to  sell  their  children  or  keep 
them  in  slavery,  that  forms  the  degradation  of  the  aristocratic 
white  family  in  Dred.  Mina  Gordon,  the  heroine,  and  her 
brother  Tom,  had  the  same  father  as  Harry,  their  slave  over 
seer;  they  are  ignorant  of  the  relation,  but  he  is  not;  and  when 
Tom  attempts  to  sell  into  slavery  the  widow  of  his  Ohio 
cousin,  Harry  knows  it  is  his  own  sister  who  is  in  danger. 
Tom  Gordon  exhibits  the  depraved  effects  of  slavery  upon  an 
undisciplined  nature,  installed  by  the  system  in  a  position  of 
absolute  power  over  his  fellow-creatures;  he  is  the  darker 
version  of  Henrique  St.  Clare  in  the  earlier  novel,  the  boy  of 
spirit  turning  tyrant  by  mere  force  of  opportunity.  The 
tragedy  is  more  horrible  in  Dred  since  Tom  is  lord  over  his 
own  flesh  and  blood ;  there  is  nothing,  perhaps,  in  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  so  powerful  as  the  moment  when  Tom  Gordon  sees 
Harry's  wife  and  tells  her  husband  he  intends  to  appropriate 
her.  In  the  first  half  of  the  novel  the  development  of  this 
theme  is  as  terrible  as  the  old  Websterian  tragedy. 

But  Dred  is  in  many  ways  a  disappointing  book,  and  in 
nothing  more  than  the  ease  with  which  its  many  problems  are 
solved.  Harry  manages  to  save  his  wife,  with  no  greater 
suffering  than  the  sense  of  injustice.  Mrs.  Stowe  had  told 
once  for  all  the  experiences  of  a  runaway  slave;  she  apparently 
did  not  care  to  repeat  the  portrait;  her  interest  in  Harry  and 
his  wife  was  confined  to  their  relations  with  his  white  brother. 
For  the  reader,  however,  the  easy  solution  vitiates  the  original 
force  of  the  problem.  The  same  criticism  applies  to  the  en 
tire  story.  We  are  first  introduced  to  Miss  Gordon  at  the 
critical  moment  in  her  butterfly  career,  when  she  has  engaged 
herself  to  three  lovers  at  once,  and  has  returned  from  a  fash 
ionable  boarding-school  in  the  North  to  take  charge  of  her 


304  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

Southern  estate,  of  which  she  understands  nothing.  No 
wonder  that  her  brother  Harry  feels  somber  misgivings  for 
himself  and  the  rest  of  the  " property."  But  the  reader 
promptly  finds  that  any  worry  at  this  point  is  unnecessary; 
Mina  suddenly  becomes  a  sensible,  tender-hearted  woman, 
dismisses  the  two  lovers  she  does  not  wish  to  marry,  and  en 
gages  herself  publicly  to  Clayton,  a  high-minded  idealist.  Un 
der  his  guidance  she  begins  to  care  for  her  estate  with  such 
wisdom  and  philanthropy  as  must  surely  make  her  an  un 
welcome  member  of  her  community ;  but  that  problem  is  dis 
posed  of  by  her  sudden  death.  On  his  own  plantation  Clay 
ton  continues  his  humane  program  for  raising  the  negro  race, 
till  he  is  in  serious  danger  of  his  life;  that  problem  is  avoided 
in  the  story  by  his  leaving  the  state.  So  the  personage  from 
whom  the  book  chances  to  take  its  name,  is  also,  in  the  ar 
tistic  sense,  a  disappointment;  the  problem  of  Dred's  mystical 
character,  and  the  suggestive  possibilities  in  his  power  to  pro 
tect  and  lead  even  the  well  educated  of  his  race,  are  alike  dis 
posed  of  when  he  is  killed  by  the  slave-hunters.  The  fact  is, 
Mrs.  Stowe  had  material  enough  for  several  plots,  all  too 
large  and  suggestive  to  be  treated  in  her  flowing,  discursive 
manner;  the  complexity  of  the  material  is  as  much  a  mis 
fortune  in  Dred  as  the  simplicity  of  theme  was  the  salvation 
of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  Only  one  thread  of  the  rich  tangle  is 
really  traced  throughout  its  length ;  Tiff  gains  something  from 
the  fact  that  his  career  is  shown  whole  and  consistent. 

It  will  not  be  difficult  to  see  that  Dred  has  no  very  obvious 
unity;  Mrs.  Stowe  seems  to  have  had  some  doubt  as  to  the 
proper  name  of  the  story,  and  certainly  the  inspired  negro  is 
its  hero  only  incidentally.  Perhaps  it  would  be  overrash  to 
suggest  any  person  in  it  as  hero  or  heroine.  It  is  this  grave 
failure  in  plot  that  has  doubtless  caused  Dred  to  be  generally 
forgotten.  But  the  first  popularity  of  the  book  was  due  to 
something  more  than  the  glamour  of  its  predecessor;  in  de- 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  305 

tached  situations  and  in  the  characters  it  is  more  convincing, 
more  subtle,  and  more  human  than  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  The 
great  religious  fervor  that  seemed  to  purge  the  first  story  of  all 
but  its  crude,  sinewy  virtues,  was  on  the  whole  absent  in 
Dred;  Mrs.  Stowe  approached  the  second  book,  not  simply  as 
a  reformer,  but  as  a  world-famous  author,  and  both  the 
merits  and  faults  can  perhaps  be  traced  to  this  reestablish- 
ment  of  her  normal  art.  The  antislavery  documents  on  which 
the  first  book  had  been  based,  were  now  better  fused  in  her 
mind,  so  that  the  characters  and  scenes  blend  into  a  more 
consistent  world,  yet  that  world  seems  further  removed  from 
actual  experience.  Nothing  new  could  be  said  on  the  main 
problem  of  slavery  after  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin;  Dred  simply 
repeats  the  first  indictment  with  more  skill  in  some  ways,  with 
less  in  others.  It  would  not  be  far  out  of  the  way  to  see  in 
Mina  Gordon  a  new  version  of  Eva — the  spoiled  child  with  a 
loving  heart,  pathetically  isolated  in  her  social  world  by  her 
wish  to  be  of  service  to  her  people.  The  resemblance  is 
strongest  in  the  melodramatic  death  that  takes  both  characters 
out  of  the  stories;  aside  from  that,  Mina  is  more  human  and 
more  interesting  than  Eva,  yet  it  is  obvious  that  the  young 
woman's  perfectly  normal  wish  to  be  useful  in  the  world,  can 
not  compete  in  immediate  effect  nor  in  fame  with  the  pre 
cocious  spirituality  of  the  child.  The  fine  character  of  St. 
Clare  is  suggested  in  many  persons  in  the  second  story;  the 
best  of  his  nature  is  in  Clayton,  whose  capacity  for  action 
wins  respect  that  could  not  be  given  the  paralyzed  will  of 
Eva's  father.  Yet  the  very  difference  destroys  in  Clayton  the 
romantic  vein  that  made  St.  Clare  attractive.  There  is  no 
one  in  Dred  so  degraded  as  Legree;  Tom  Gordon  is  the  nearest 
approach  to  him,  yet  the  reader  feels  in  a  subtle  way,  as  Mrs. 
Stowe  intended,  that  Gordon  is  the  victim  of  a  system.  The 
original  license  in  his  father's  nature  is  in  him  the  cause  of 
drunkenness  and  reckless  evil  doing,  but  he  seems  less  cal- 


306  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

culating  in  his  wickedness  than  Legree,  and  to  that  extent 
less  of  a  fiend. 

In  the  person  of  Dred  himself  Mrs.  Stowe  develops  the 
African  turn  for  mystery  and  supernaturalism  which  she  had 
indicated  in  Cassey.  Like  Cassey,  too,  Dred  faintly  suggests 
the  ultra-romantic  figure  in  a  Scott  novel,  standing  somewhat 
outside  the  plot,  yet  creating  the  special  interest  of  the  story. 
The  first  appearances  of  Dred  are  remarkably  effective,  and 
the  scene  at  the  camp-meeting  where  he  utters  his  prophecy 
from  the  darkness  is  one  of  the  best  things  in  Mrs.  Stowe's 
work.  Yet  here  again  the  fine  opportunity  comes  to  little; 
with  all  his  foresight  and  his  Hebraic  eloquence  and  his  un 
canny  inspiration,  Dred  meets  a  very  human  fate,  and  we 
feel  cheated  in  the  former  rumors  of  his  invulnerability.  It  is 
typical  of  the  whole  book  that  his  home  in  the  swamp,  so 
minutely  described,  is  not  used  as  a  vital  element  in  the  situa 
tion.  And  in  a  deep  sense  Dred's  prestige  is  taken  from  him 
at  a  critical  moment  when  Milly,  the  religious  heroine  of  the 
story,  successfully  answers  his  call  to  ajrms  with  the  simple 
doctrines  of  Christian  charity. 

The  case  is  strong  against  the  artistic  construction  of  Dred. 
In  structure  it  is  amorphous,  and  few  of  the  characters  do 
anything.  Yet  those  readers  who  preferred  it  to  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  could  easily  have  defended  their  opinion  on  the  ground 
that  the  pictures,  taken  separately,  seem  truer  to  the  imagina 
tion,  and  in  one  character,  Tiff,  Mrs.  Stowe  had  idealized 
the  negro  even  more  convincingly  than  in  Uncle  Tom  him 
self.  In  the  first  novel,  where  her  interest  primarily  was  in  the 
black  man,  she  made  out  a  better  case  for  the  mulatto  and  the 
quadroon;  in  Dred,  intending  to  picture  more  particularly 
the  experiences  of  the  mixed  races,  the  incidental  portrait  of 
the  black  man  is  best.  Evidently  there  was  some  paralysis 
of  her  genius  at  the  points  where  she  followed  a  conscious  pur 
pose.  Tiff,  the  loyal  servant  of  the  woman  who  had  made 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  307 

an  imprudent  marriage  with  a  most  convincing  specimen  of 
"  white  trash,"  is  brought  into  the  story  to  show  the  immense 
superiority  of  the  black  man  over  the  worst  of  the  sovereign 
race.  But  the  attention  soon  fixes  upon  his  pride  in  his  mis 
tress'  family,  and  his  ambition  to  bring  up  the  impoverished 
children  in  the  traditions  of  their  blood.  It  would  be  impos 
sible  to  find  a  more  beautiful  picture  of  slavery  at  its  best;  if 
this  had  been  the  whole  story,  neither  this  book  nor  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  would  have  been  written;  that  Mrs.  Stowe  could 
do  the  institution  such  justice  is  another  proof  of  her  unusual 
fairness. 

Tiff  is  entirely  lacking  in  Uncle  Tom's  heroic  qualities 
and  he  is  not  well  trained  nor  experienced  in  religion ;  Milly, 
the  servant  of  Mina's  aunt,  takes  Uncle  Tom's  place  in  the 
latter  respect.  But  Tiff's  deficiencies  really  make  him  at 
tractive,  since  they  leave  him  with  a  single  mastering  passion, 
loyalty  to  the  family.  His  uncouth  efforts  to  train  the  chil 
dren  in  polite  ways,  his  advice  as  to  the  correct  use  of  the 
English  language,  and  his  unerring  instinct  for  a  descendant 
of  a  genuine  "  first  family,"  are  not  less  pathetic  for  being 
often  ridiculous.  And  in  Mrs.  Stowe's  favorite  field  of  re 
ligion  Tiff  is  the  occasion  of  what  seems  a  more  effective  ap 
peal  than  the  scenes  between  Eva  and  Tom,  when  he  asks 
Mina  to  read  the  Bible  to  him,  and  the  thoughtless  girl  real 
izes  that  she  also  is  hearing  it  for  the  first  time. 

The  material  of  Dred,  it  will  have  been  seen,  is  simply  that 
of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  in  another  form.  The  neglect  of  the 
book  to-day  can  be  explained  by  its  obvious  deficiencies  in 
form, — deficiencies  that  with  the  one  great  exception  marred 
all  Mrs.  Stowe's  work.  But  the  characters  are  in  the  main 
suggestive  and  true,  and  there  are  strong  themes  and  situations 
everywhere  in  the  story,  too  many  for  the  author  to  develop, 
and  too  many  to  mention  here.  They  show  sometimes  an  un 
expected  dramatic  instinct,  as  in  the  appeal  of  Clayton's  case, 


308  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

where  his  victorious  decision  for  the  wronged  slave  is  re 
versed,  as  a  matter  of  conscience,  by  the  judge,  his  own  father; 
and  sometimes  they  show  a  delightful  subtlety  of  attack,  not 
to  be  found  in  Uncle  Tom,  as  where  Milly,  after  years  of  sad 
experience,  is  made  to  remark  quite  naively  that  "  white 
chilen,  when  they  'haves  themselves,  is  just  as  good  as  black, 
/  and  I  loves  'em  just  as  well." 

VII 

In  August,  1856,  Mrs.  Stowe  visited  England  for  the  second 
time,  accompanied  by  her  husband,  her  son  Henry,  her  sister 
Mary  and  her  two  eldest  daughters.  The  leisurely  journey 
that  she  made  in  England,  France,  and  Italy  was  of  course 
quieter  and  more  private  than  her  first  triumphant  progress, 
but  the  prestige  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  was  still  strong  and 
Dred  was  in  great  demand;  the  letters  home  show  that  Mrs. 
Stowe' s  welcome  among  the  best  minds  was  not  less  sincere 
and  warm.  If  there  were  no  public  testimonials  to  her  ser 
vice  as  emancipator,  there  were  more  private  testimonials 
to  her  success  as  an  author;  letters  from  Harriet  Martineau 
and  others  in  praise  of  Dred  especially  pleased  her.  Many  con 
sidered  the  novel  her  best  work,  though  Prescott  protested 
gently  against  the  "premature  smothering"  of  the  heroine. 
But  the  record  of  this  trip,  like  that  of  the  third  visit  to  Europe, 
in  1859,  suggests  in  many  ways  that  the  heroic  period  in  Mrs. 
Stowe's  career  was  passing.  Her  nature  is  still  enthusiastic 
and  cheery,  her  comments  on  life  and  thought  have  still  her 
characteristic  zest,  but  on  the  one  great  theme  she  has  had 
her  say,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  now  that  so  far  as  her  art  is  con 
cerned  she  is  already  living  in  the  past.  Unsustained  by  the 
fire  of  a  just  cause,  her  genius  flags  somewhat;  the  note 
of  weariness  shows  first  perhaps  in  her  inadequate  por 
trait  of  Charles  Kingsley,  whom  she  visited,  and  later  in 
her  gossip  about  spiritualism,  toward  which  she  exhibited 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  309 

the  same  simple  credulity  as  she  was  to  show  toward  Lady 
Byron. 

Professor  Stowe  was  obliged  to  return  to  America  in  Sep 
tember,  and  a  month  later  his  son  Henry  followed,  to  enter 
Dartmouth  College.  Mrs.  Stowe's  return  in  June  was  sad 
dened  by  the  tragic  death  of  this  boy,  drowned  in  the  Con 
necticut  at  Hanover.  Something  of  the  stern  theology  her 
childhood  had  known  now  returned  to  add  to  Mrs.  Stowe's 
sorrow;  loving  and  good  as  this  son  had  been,  she  felt  dark 
questionings  as  to  his  spiritual  state.  The  record  is  in  a 
letter  to  her  sister  Catherine, — a  significant  fact,  since  Cath 
erine  had  suffered  even  greater  agony  of  mind  years  before, 
when  on  the  drowning  of  her  lover,  Professor  Fisher,  she 
could  allow  herself  no  faith  in  his  salvation.  So  when  The 
Minister's  Wooing  began  to  appear  in  December,  1858,  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Mrs.  Stowe  made 
the  new  story  turn  upon  the  supposed  shipwreck  of  an  un 
converted  son.  Much  in  the  novel  that  must  have  seemed  of 
first  importance  to  the  author,  was  the  record  of  her  own  ex 
perience,  or  the  experience  of  her  sister  Catherine.  But  as 
often  happens,  the  general  reader  will  disagree  with  the  au 
thor,  and  find  the  power  of  the  book  in  other  places. 

So  good  a  critic  as  Lowell  thought  T^he_Ministerys  Wooing 
the  most  characteristic  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  works, — that  on  which 
her  fame  would  rest.  He  based  his  opinion  on  the  fact  that 
it  dealt  with  New  England  Hfe,jvhich  the  author  knew  more 
intimately  perhaps  than  any  other  writer,  and  it  had — so  he 
thought — no  immediate  moral  purpose  to  dry-rot  its  fame. 
If  his  prophecy  has  not  come  true,  perhaps  the  explanation 
lies  in  Ruskin's  complaint  that  Mrs.  Stowe  was  "too  dis 
dainful  of  what  ordinary  readers  seek  in  a  novel,  under  the 
name  of  'interest' — that  gradually  developing  wonder,  ex 
pectation,  and  curiosity."  It  is  true  that  the  novel  does  not 
grip  the  reader  as  it  should,  considering  the  fine  elements  in 


310  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

it;  the  sad  conditions  of  its  composition  explain  much  of  its 
low  vitality,  which  was  to  characterize  almost  everything 
that  Mrs.  Stowe  wrote  from  that  time.  But  the  other  fact 
remains  that  she  here  had  a  special  purpose  in  view,  a  reli 
gious  moral  to  teach;  it  was  her  great  artistic  misfortune,  as 
Lowell  feared,  to  be  the  preacher  still.  Criticism  seems  ruth 
less  which  condemns  the  theological  comfortings  the  book  was 
intended  to  convey  to  parents  of  boys  who  had  died  before 
they  joined  the  church;  but  the  fact  remains  that  the  most 
respectful  reader  is  now  reconciled  to  skipping  that  part  of  the 
story. 

Much  more  cc*nyincing_to  the  modern  mind  is  the  beauti 
ful  story  of  the  Minister's  sacrifice.  In  Dr.  Hopkins  Mrs. 
Stowe  drew  the  portrait  of  one  of  those  large  mind£j,nd  simple 
Jieajls  which  New  England  theology  bred,  and  with  which 
she  had  had  an  almost  unique  acquaintance.  Artistically 
there  is  no  false  note  in  the  portrait,  though  Ruskin  somewhat 
irritably  objected  to  the  extreme  simplicity  that  was  blind 
to  Mary's  love  for  her  lost  sweetheart,  James  Marvyn.  But 
the  simplicity  jg  madeLcredible  Jn_the^stoiY  by  the  devotion 
of  Mrs.  Scudder  and  the  other  faithful  sisters  of  the  congrega 
tion,  who  so  tempered  this  practical  world  for  the  comfort  of 
their  idealizing  pastor,  that  he  never  stopped  to  question 
where  his  new  shirts  and  fresh-curled  wigs  came  from;  and 
Mrs.  Scudder  with  the  same  loving  calculation  set  aside  her 
daughter  as  his  wife  before  he  or  she  realized  the  disposition 
of  their  fate,  which  all  three  considered  the  will  of  a  kindly 
Providence.  The  ministexl&^a^nficejs  all  the  more  affecting, 
when  he  learns  that  he  is  unconsciously  forcing  a  child's 
hearty  the  f  ouch  of  indignation  and  the  sudden  gathering  of 
his  dignity  at  the  news  finely  humanize  his  too  unworldly 
character;  the  reader,  mindful  of  the  abundant  preachment  of- 
the  book,  is  inclined  to  think  with  the  grateful  James  Marvyn 
that  this  one  act  of  the  Doctor's  is  worth  many  sermons. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  311 

Like  Dred,  the  novel  is  weak  on  the  formal  side.  It  falls 
into  two  parts,  separate  both  in  plot  and  in  treatment.  The 
New  England  life  described  in  the  first  chapters,  is  the  work 
of  that  loving  realism  which  distinguished  Mrs.  Stowe's  early 
sketches.  It  was  a  life  she  knew  well,  both  in  circumstance 
and  in  character,  through  experience  or  immediate  family 
tradition.  Her  manner  in  portraying  it  is  subdued  almost  to  a 
fault,  but  in  its  quiet  tone  the  picture  is  minute,  full  of  humor, 
and  rich  in  its  illumination  of  the  early  New  England  mind. 
In  this  general  setting  lies  the  main  story  of  the  minister  ajici 
his  betrothed,  and  it  is  the  best  part  of  the  book.  In  the  story 
of  Aaron  Burr  and  Virginie  de  Frontignac,  however,  Mrs. 
Stowe  essays  the  historical  romance.  The  two  figures,  are  far 
too  brilliantly  colored  to  subdue  themselves  to  the  environ 
ment  or  the  manner  of  the  main  story,  and  they  play  no  e§- 
sential  part  in  the  plot.  Their  presence,  though  an  artistic 
fault,  could  be  more  easily  overlooked  if  they  were  not  so 
beautifully  drawn  and  so  intrinsically  interesting.  When 
they  appear  they  bring  a  subtle  promise  that  something  is  to 
happen,  and  though  they  leave  the  stage  simply,  with  the 
promise  unfulfilled,  the  imagination  is  unfortunately  attracted 
to  follow  them  rather  than  Mary  or  James  or  Dr.  Hopkins. 
It  is  somewhat  remarkable,  in  view  of  her  ancestry  and  train 
ing,  that  Mrs.  Stowe  should  have  pictured  the  French  woman 
with  such  delicacy  and  sympathy;  her  character  is  true  to 
her  nation,  and  is  one  more  witness  to  the  author's  largeness 
of  heart,  which  had  made  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  a  popular  novel 
in  Paris. 

The  problem  of  the  negro  is  referred  to  in  the  novel,Jhough 
the  remoteness  of  the  time  makes  any  large  treatment  of  eman 
cipation  unfitting.  Mrs.  Stowe  cleverly  makes  the  doctrine 
of  freedom  one  of  Dr.  Hopkins'  Utopian  theories,  so  that 
whatever  discussion  there  is  seems  in  keeping  with  his  brave, 
unpractical  nature;  nothing  could  be  more  delightful  in  its 


312  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

way  than  his  devout  counsel  to  Simeon  Brown,  his  worldly, 
slave-dealing  friend,  to  win  the  favor  of  God  by  setting  free 
all  his  property.  Equally  effective  in  other  directions  is  the 
scene  in  which  Zebedee  Marvyn  sets  free  Candace  and  her 
husband  Cato.  Candace  is  one  of  Mrs.  Stowe' s  best  negro 
characters,  loyal,  childlike  and  humorous;  she  is  also  interest 
ing  as  a  Northern  slave,  in  an  economic  world  far  different 
from  the  plantation  states.  Though  her  position  in  the  home 
seems  more  obviously  menial  than  that  of  Aunt  Chloe,  for 
example,  Candace  is  a  Southern  negro  in  her  capacity  for 
feudal  allegiance;  she  seems  out  of  place,  an  impossible  prod 
uct  of  her  environment,  as  we  feel  in  her  delightful  wrestlings 
with  the  Calvinistic  Catechism. 

Where  Mrs.  Stowe  is  not  moved  to  directness  by  the  ear 
nestness  of  her  cause,  sjiejs  nearer  eighteenth-century  models 
of  novel  writing  than  she  is  to  either  Scott  or  Cooper.  It 
would  be  fairer  to  say  that  she  follows  the  essayists,  for  a 
chronological  reading  of  her  works  induces  the  opinion  that 
she  is  more  interested  in  ideas  than  in  stories,  and  this  ex 
pository  interest  grows  upon  her.  Without  the  Addisonian 
art  or  lightness  of  touch,  her  genius  unfolded  itself  in  com 
ments  upon  the  story,  rather  than  through  its  development. 
It  was  this  tendency  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  The  Minister's 
Wooing  that  Lowell  protested  against,  as  a  tendency  jtp 
preach;  it  places  the  story  among  those  leisurely  books  that 
are  little  likely  to  be  cheaply  popular,  and  which  need  to  be 
of  first  excellence  to  be  really  good  at  all.  In  his  own  develop 
ment  of  the  Addisonian  manner  Irving  had  raised  this  style  of 
writing  to  a  perfection  Mrs.  Stowe  could  not  equal,  and  on  the 
larger  scale  of  the  novel  Thackeray  seems  to  have  monopo 
lized  the  mastery  of  the  sentimental  comment  and  the  con 
fidential  aside.  But  Mrs.  Stowe  lacked  only  the  art  and  the 
trainingjx)  excel  in  her  own  way;  she  had  naturally  the  poetical 
temperament  that  broods  and  reflects  upon  life,  and  stores  it 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  313 

up  in  wise  images.  At  her  best  she  enriches  her  story  with 
this  philosophical  harvest  of  experience,  in  a  manner  not  too 
discursive  to  help  the  story  on;  and  if  she  is  at  her  best  but 
seldom,  it  is  well  to  remember  such  fine  examples  of  it  as  the 
description  of  the  minister's  impractical  idealism, — a  passage 
that  Lowell  marked  with  exceptional  praise: 

"  There  is  a  ladder  in  heaven,  whose  base  God  has  placed  in 
human  affections,  tender  instincts,  symbolic  feelings,  sacra 
ments  of  love,  through  which  the  soul  rises  higher  and  higher, 
refining  as  she  goes,  till  she  outgrows  the  human,  and  changes, 
as  she  rises,  into  the  image  of  the  divine.  At  the  very  top  of 
this  ladder,  at  the  threshold  of  paradise,  blazes  dazzling  and 
crystalline  that  celestial  grade  where  the  soul  knows  itself  no 
more,  having  learned  through  a  long  experience  of  devotion, 
how  blest  it  is  to  lose  herself  in  that  eternal  Love  and  Beauty 
of  which  all  earthly  fairness  and  grandeur  are  but  the  dim 
type,  the  distant  shadow.  This  highest  step,  this  saintly  eleva 
tion,  which  but  few  select  best  spirits  ever  on  earth  attain,  to 
raise  the  soul  to  which  the  Eternal  Father  organized  every 
relation  of  human  existence  and  strung  every  chord  of  human 
love,  for  which  this  world  is  one  long  discipline,  for  which 
the  soul's  human  education  is  constantly  varied,  for  which  it 
is  now  torn  by  sorrow,  now  flooded  by  joy,  to  which  all  its 
multiplied  powers  tend  with  upward  hands  of  dumb  and  ig 
norant  aspiration, — this  Ultima  Thule  of  virtue  had  been 
seized  by  our  sage  as  the  all  of  religion.  He  knocked  out 
every  round  of  the  ladder  but  the  highest,  and  then  pointing 
to  its  hopeless  splendor,  said  to  the  world, '  Go  up  thither  and 
be  saved!'" 

Lowell's  prophecy  that  The  Minister's  Wooing  would  lead 
Mrs.  Stowe's  other  work  by  virtue  of  its  record  of  New  Eng 
land  life,  does  not  seem  likely  to  come  true,  so  far  as  its  fame 
is  concerned,  but  when  all  account  is  taken  of  the  faults  and 
merits  of  the  story,  our  opinion  comes  back  to  his  point  that 
Mrs._  Stowe  could  portray  the  old  Puritan  mind  with  peculiar 
authority.  The  persons  in  this  book  explain  much  that 


314  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

puzzles  one  in  the  popular  idea  of  the  early  New  Englander. 
There  is  the  sternness,  the  thrift,  the  practical  sense,  even  the 
slyness,  of  the  traditional  Yankee,  and  there  is  of  course  such 
a  capacity  for  deep  religious  feeling  as  would  be  hard  to  match 
outside  the  Puritan  character.  But  just  as  vitally  there  is  a 
tradition  of  culture  and  art,  of  the  lighter  graces  of  life,  and 
more  unexpected  under  a  system  of  rigid  religious  dogma,  a 
great  spiritual  curiosity,  a  yearning  for  the  unseen  beauty  and 
truth  that  the  world  may  contain.  It  is  this  side  of  the  New 
England  character  that  was  to  produce  Emerson  and  Haw 
thorne  and  Lowell,  and  Mrs.  Stowe  herself.  It  is  shown  in 
the  story  as  something  not  quite  understood  by  the  persons 
themselves;  Mary  inherits  it  from  her  dead  father,  and  is 
troubled  at  her  own  generous  impulses,  thinking  them  often 
motions  of  sin;  and  her  lover,  James  Marvyn,  inherits  it  from 
his  mother,  and  determines  to  see  the  world,  to  the  scandal  of 
a  family  where  the  other  sons,  in  Stevenson's  phrase,  were 
"  sedentary  folk  and  known  in  the  land."  This  large  curiosity 
imprisoned  in  a  narrow  fate  is  specifically  ascribed  to  Mar 
vyn' s  mother.  Not  only  are  such  baffled  desires  the  very 
tragedy  of  a  limited  country  horizon,  but  as  Mrs.  Stowe  de 
scribes  them  they  seem  the  romance  and  the  power  of  New 
England  character : 

"What  might  be  that  marvelous  music  of  the  Miserere,  of 
which  she  read,  that  it  convulsed  crowds  and  drew  groans 
and  tears  from  the  most  obdurate  ?  What  might  be  those 
wondrous  pictures  of  Raphael  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  ?  What 
could  it  be  to  see  the  Apollo,  the  Venus?  What  was  the 
charm  that  enchanted  the  old  marbles, — charm  untold  and 
inconceivable  to  one  who  had  never  seen  even  the  slightest  ap 
proach  to  a  work  of  art  ?  Then  those  glaciers  of  Switzerland, 
that  grand,  unapproachable  mixture  of  beauty  and  sublim 
ity  in  her  mountains ! — what  would  it  be  to  one  who  could 
see  it?  Then  what  were  all  those  harmonies  of  which  she 
read, — masses,  fugues,  symphonies  ?  Oh,  could  she  once  hear 


>  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  ^     315 

the  Miserere  of  Mozart,  just  to  know  what  music  was  like! 
And  the  cathedrals,  what  were  they?  How  wonderful  they 
must  be,  with  their  forests  of  arches,  many-colored  as  autumn- 
woods  with  painted  glass,  and  the  chants  and  anthems  roll 
ing  down  their  long  aisles!  On  all  these  things  she  pondered 
quietly,  as  she  sat  often  on  Sundays  in  the  old  staring,  rattle- 
windowed  meeting-house,  and  looked  at  the  uncouth  old 
pulpit,  and  heard  the  choir  faw-sol-laing  or  sing  fuguing 
hymns;  but  of  all  this  she  said  nothing." 

VIII 

The  Pearl  of  Orr's  Island,  published  serially  in  the  New 
York  Independent  in  1862,  was  planned  as  early  as  1852,  when 
the  Stowes  first  went  to  Andover.  It  was  written  in  1858, 
simultaneously  with  The  Minister's  Wooing,  when  Mrs.  Stowe 
was  saddened  by  the  death  of  her  son.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  the  tone  of  the  story  is  solemn,  nor  that  the  horrors  of 
drowning  enter  the  plot,  as  they  had  the  plot  of  The  Minis 
ter's  Wooing.  If  that  novel  is  a  realistic  study  of  old  New 
England  life,  the  Pearl  o^Orr's  Island  is  a  poetical  dream  of 
it, — one  almost  suspects,  an  attempt  to  preserve  it  in  the 
Theocritean  manner.  The  gentle  Whittier  preferred  it  to 
Mrs.  Stowe's  other  works;  he  called  it  "the  most  charming 
New  England  idyl  ever  written."  It  is  rich  externally,  ia. 
language,  in  poetical  imagery  and  even, — what  is  rare  with 
its  author, — in  felicities  of  style  and  cadence.  It  leaves  the 
reader  with  many  striking  pictures,  such  as  the  finding  of 
Moses  with  his  surroundings,  the  two  children  floating  out 
to  sea  on  their  first  perilous  voyage.  But  what  enriches  the 
book  most  is  the  sense  of  deep  and  broad  experience  of  life 
that  belongs  to  practically  all  the  characters;  simple  as  their 
fortunes  are,  they  have  lived  much.  In  no  other  book  has 
Mrs.  Stowe  given  so  consistent  an  impression  of  experience. 

But  it  is  easy  to  explain  the  slight  fame  of  the  book,  in  spite 
of  its  real  excellences.  Its  sentimentality  is  excessive;  Mara's 


316  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

death,  for  example,  is  as  wilful  murder  as  ever  author  com 
mitted  on  a  defenseless  girl,  though  in  view  of  Mrs.  Stowe's 
summary  way  with  her  other  delicate  heroines,  the  reader 
might  have  guessed  there  was  no  hope  for  her  from  the  first. 
Another  phase  of  the  sentimentality,  unimportant  in  itself  but 
carried  to  an  astounding  degree,  is  the  propensity  of  the  char 
acters,  especially  in  the  beginning  of  the  book,  to  sing  hymns. 
The  names  of  the  tunes  are  recorded.  When  Zephaniah  sets 
sail  in  his  boat  for  the  meeting-house  on  the  mainland,  he 
raises  his  Sunday-morning  psalm.  When  Mrs.  Fennel  and 
Miss  Ruey  are  together  the  night  of  the  storm,  Miss  Ruey 
sings  a  hymn  to  her  companion,  though  the  tune  is  difficult 
and  her  voice  inadequate  through  age;  she  remarks  with  a 
fitness  Mrs.  Stowe  would  never  have  been  intentionally  guilty 
of,  "I  remember  singin'  that  ar  to  Mary  Jane  Wilson  the 
night  she  died." 

As  an  idyl  of  New  England  life  the  story  suffers,  in  that 
much  of  its  best  quality  would  be  true  of  life  on  any  other 
shore.  It  is  not  localized  as  successfully  as  The  Minister'' s 
Wooing,  or  later,  Poganuc  People.  Miss  Roxy,  Miss  Ruey, 
Mrs.  Kittridge,  and  the  Fennels  seem  to  belong  to  New  Eng 
land  society,  but  Mara  and  Moses,  Mr.  Sewell  the  minister, 
Sally  Kittridge,  and  above  all  her  delightful  story-telling 
father,  are  characters  so  general  in  their  qualities  that  they 
might  be  met  in  any  quiet  community,  in  any  age.  The  two 
most  admirable  people  are  Captain  Kittridge  and  his  daugh 
ter;  and  Sally's  fidelity  to  Mara  when  Moses  asks  for  her  love, 
is  not  typical  of  New  England  life  in  an  exclusive  or  distin 
guishing  way,  any  more  than  is  her  father's  love  of  children 
and  his  ability  to  tell  them  fairy  stories.  This  sense  of  the  un- 
authenticity  of  the  book  as  a  document  of  New  England  life, 
together  with  the  languid  movement  of  the  plot,  perhaps 
accounts  for  the  general  oblivion  that  has  overtaken  what  is 
in  many  ways  an  unusual  book. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  317 

Before  the  publication  of  The  Pearl  of  Orr's  Island  Mrs. 
Stowe's  interests  had  been  completely  engrossed  by  the  Civil 
War.  Her  son  Frederick  enlisted  in  the  First  Massachusetts 
Volunteers.  She  bore  the  parting  from  him  with  the  heroism 
to  be  expected  of  her  character;  everything  she  wrote  of  him 
suggests  a  kind  of  Spartan  joy  in  his  devotion  to  the  cause 
her  genius  had  served.  When  his  regiment  left  Boston  for  the 
front  she  was  in  Brooklyn,  but  succeeded  in  meeting  him  at 
the  depot  in  Jersey  City.  Somewhat  over  a  year  later  she  was 
in  Washington  at  a  Thanksgiving  dinner  for  the  fugitive 
slaves.  Her  son,  now  a  lieutenant,  was  stationed  near  by, 
and  she  procured  his  absence  from  the  regiment  for  forty- 
eight  hours.  The  following  July  he  was  seriously  wounded  at 
Gettysburg.  He  was  then  a  captain,  and  his  character  and 
ability  might  have  carried  him  far.  But  the  fragment  of  shell 
had  injured  his  brain  permanently.  It  was  for  his  sake  that 
Mrs.  Stowe  bought  a  Florida  plantation  after  the  war,  but  his 
health  did  not  mend.  Some  years  later  he  sailed  for  Cali 
fornia,  hoping  for  the  benefit  of  a  long  voyage;  he  reached 
his  destination,  but  nothing  more  was  ever  heard  of  him. 

The  war  brought  a  less  personal  but  still  bitter  tragedy  to 
Mrs.  Stowe  in  the  attitude  of  the  English  toward  the  North. 
It  was  naturally  incomprehensible  to  her  that  the  country 
which  had  idolized  her  for  the  attack  on  slavery  should  side 
with  the  slave  states  when  the  attack  became  actual.  The 
genuineness  of  the  well-remembered  welcome  and  praise  so 
few  years  before  could  not  but  seem  insincere  now.  She  com 
forted  herself  in  the  loyalty  of  a  few  powerful  friends,  such  as 
the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  who  kept  their  faith  in  the  cause 
of  freedom.  Her  own  impetuous  Beecher  blood  is  evident  in 
her  criticisms  of  the  Northerners  in  prosecuting  the  war.  She 
had  tried  to  get  her  son  transferred  from  the  infantry  to  the 
cavalry,  because  the  cavalry  saw  more  active  service;  and  in 
the  same  spirit  she  would  have  had  slavery  abolished  sooner 


318  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

than  it  was,  and  she  blamed  Lincoln  for  being  too  slow.  Her 
childhood  aspiration  to  make  some  declaration  on  her  own 
account  was  still  her  guiding  impulse,  and  she  required  the 
same  immediateness  of  the  nation's  leaders. 

One  telling  opportunity  of  speaking  out  for  the  cause  pre 
sented  itself.  In  the  height  of  the  popularity  of  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  more  than  half  a  million  women  in  Great  Britain  had 
signed  an  address  to  the  women  of  the  United  States,  and  had 
forwarded  it  to  Mrs.  Stowe.  This  remarkable  document, 
representing  every  class  of  society  in  England,  had  pleaded  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery.  In  January,  1863,  Mrs.  Stowe  pub 
lished  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  a  singularly  adroit  reply.  After 
acknowledging  the  pleas  contained  in  the  address,  she  re 
counted  the  tremendous  events  which  through  the  interven 
ing  eight  years  had  agonized  the  country  in  war,  and  had 
finally  led  to  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  Then  with  the 
greatest  dignity  and  restraint  she  made  the  charge  against 
England  which  of  course  was  the  purpose  of  the  reply.  She 
reminded  her  readers  that  after  all  the  English  pleas  for  the 
slave,  England  had  morally  supported  the  South,  and  the 
North  had  made  the  fight  with  every  discouragement  from 
overseas.  The  vigorous  scorn  that  had  flashed  in  many  a 
page  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  spoke  again: 

"Step  after  step  has  been  taken  for  liberty;  chain  after 
chain  has  fallen,  till  the  march  of  our  armies  is  choked  and 
clogged  by  the  glad  flocking  of  emancipated  slaves;  the  day  of 
final  emancipation  is  set;  the  border  states  begin  to  move  in 
voluntary  consent;  universal  freedom  for  all  dawns  like  the 
sun  in  the  distant  horizon,  and  still  no  voice  from  England. 
No  voice  ?  Yes,  we  have  heard  on  the  high  seas  the  voice  of  a 
war-steamer,  built  for  a  man-stealing  Confederacy,  with  Eng 
lish  gold,  in  an  English  dockyard,  going  out  of  an  English 
harbor,  manned  by  English  sailors,  with  the  full  knowledge 
of  English  government  officers,  in  defiance  of  the  Queen's 
proclamation  of  neutrality!  So  far  has  English  sympathy 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  319 

overflowed.  We  have  heard  of  other  steamers,  iron-clad,  de 
signed  to  furnish  to  a  slavery-defending  Confederacy  their 
only  lack, — a  navy  for  the  high  seas.  We  have  heard  that  the 
British  Evangelical  Alliance  refuses  to  express  sympathy  with 
the  liberating  party,  when  requested  to  do  so  by  the  French 
Evangelical  Alliance.  We  find  in  English  religious  newspa 
pers  all  those  sad  degrees  in  the  down-sliding  scale  of  de 
fending  and  apologizing  for  slaveholders  and  slaveholding, 
with  which  we  have  so  many  years  contended  in  our  own 
country.  We  find  the  President's  Proclamation  of  Emanci 
pation  spoken  of  in  those  papers  only  as  an  incitement  to 
servile  insurrection." 

This  reply  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  had  considerable  influence  in 
changing  the  trend  of  English  public  opinion.  It  is  worthy 
of  remembrance  as  her  last  direct  plea  for  the  slaves,  the 
cause  of  freedom  out  of  which  her  fame  arose. 

IX 

In  this  same  year,  1863,  Professor  Stowe  resigned  his  posi 
tion  at  Andover,  and  the  family  returned  to  Hartford,  where 
Mrs.  Stowe  built  a  home  on  a  spot  that  had  been  a  favorite 
with  her  in  girlhood.  In  the  next  ten  years  the  growing  in 
dustries  of  the  city  crowded  the  Stowes  from  the  neighbor 
hood,  and  they  removed  in  1873  to  wnat  remained  their  per 
manent  Hartford  home.  At  the  close  of  the  war  Mrs.  Stowe 
also  bought  a  home  in  Florida,  largely,  as  we  have  seen,  for 
the  sake  of  her  son  Frederick,  but  partly  in  order  to  do  some 
thing  in  a  private  way  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  South.  Here, 
at  Mandarin,  on  the  St.  John's  River,  she  spent  her  winters, 
working  among  the  colored  people  and  winning  the  affection 
of  all  her  neighbors.  Her  philanthropy  was  as  closely  as  ever 
identified  with  religious  work,  but  by  this  time  she  had  joined 
the  Episcopal  Church,  to  which  her  daughters  already  be 
longed,  and  she  interested  herself  in  a  plan  of  the  Bishop  of 
Florida's  for  establishing  a  line  of  churches  along  the  river. 


320  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

This  change  of  her  church  was  a  matter  for  much  autobio 
graphical  reference  in  her  later  writing.  Her  poetical  nature 
had  been  attracted  by  the  beauty  of  the  English  ritual  as  much 
as  anything;  theologically,  however,  the  whole  Beecher  family 
had  moved  steadily  away  from  the  stern  Calvinism  of  two 
generations  back,  and  Mrs.  Stowe's  liking  for  the  English 
Church  was  simply  a  result  of  that  broadening  liberality  re 
inforced,  perhaps,  by  the  far-off  traditions  of  her  mother's 
family.  The  matter  is  of  importance  only  because  it  loomed 
large  in  her  own  mind  and  in  her  later  writing;  the  casual 
reader  will  not  appreciate  it,  any  more  than  he  will  guess  that 
The  Minister's  Wooing  was  attacked  as  unorthodox. 

The  novels  that  Mrs.  Stowe  wrote,  in  steady  succession, 
to  the  end  of  her  life  are  in  general  of  a  mild  sort  of  excellence; 
they  would  hardly  have  made  her  fame  unsupported  by  her 
earlier  success,  but  they  deserve  more  praise  and  remem 
brance  than  they  usually  receive.  Agnes  of  Sorrento,  1863, 
was  begun  as  a  short  sketch  in  Florence,  during  the  winter  of 
1859-1860.  Mrs.  Stowe's  genius  was  not  strongly  in  the  di 
rection  of  romances,  and  this  novel  is  hardly  to  be  considered 
r-seriously  in  judging  her  abilities.  Of  a  much  finer  quality  is 
Old  Town  Folks,  1869,  and  Old  Town  Fireside  Stories,  1871, 
in  which  she  wrote  up  the  stories  and  reminiscences  of  her 
husband,  who  had  an  original  humor,  and  evidently  could 
piece  out  boyhood  memories  with  mature  imagination.  The 
characters  and  incidents  are  all  founded  on  actual  life;  the 
much  admired  portrait  of  Sam  Lawson  simply  preserved  in 
Mrs.  Stowe's  best  art  a  personage  her  husband  often  de 
scribed.  Professor  Stowe  himself,  whose  delicate  physique 
and  mental  activity  had  made  him  subject  all  his  life  to  such 
psychological  experiences  as  highly  imaginative  natures  some 
times  know,  appears  in  both  books  as  the  "visionary  boy." 

The   autobiographical   element   increases   in   these   later 
stories;  Mrs.  Stowe  turned  back  to  memories  of  an  earlier 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  321 

New  England,  or  to  mental  experiences  of  her  own,  and  one 
who  is  interested  in  her  personality  will  find  in  these  pages  an 
attraction  they  might  not  otherwise  possess.  Her  son  and 
biographer  thought  that  Old  Town  Folks  was  the  last  of  her 
works  that  would  survive  the  generation  for  which  they  were 
written,  and  the  opinion  is  probably  correct;  its  value  is  as  an 
authentic  picture  of  long-departed  life  in  New  England,  just 
as  the  charming  Poganuc  People,  1878,  is  a  sentimental  pic 
ture,  broadly  idealized,  of  the  author's  own  girlhood.  But 
even  these  last  books  have  a  brightness  of  tone  and  frequently 
a  charming  humor  that  makes  one  regret  their  rapid  fall  and 
oblivion.  My  Wife  and  /,  1872,  and  We  and  Our  Neighbors, 
1875,  forming  one  continuous  story  of  life  in  New  York,  have 
much  of  this  general  charm,  as  well  as  some  most  attractive 
characters  like  Jim  Fellows.  The  second  book  is  further  in 
teresting  for  the  evident  influence  of  Holmes'  Elsie  Venner,  in 
the  doctrine  illustrated  by  Dr.  Campbell  and  the  Rev.  Mr. 
St.  John,  that  the  saving  of  souls  may  often  be  a  physiological 
problem.  But  Mrs.  Stowe  knew  little  specifically  of  life  out 
of  New  England,  and  the  ways  of  high  society  were  not  her 
proper  subject.  There  is  little  hope  that  these  two  novels 
will  ever  be  referred  to  as  recognizable  portraits  even  of  an  old- 
fashioned  New  York. 

Among  much  less  important  writing  the  biographer  of  Mrs. 
Stowe  must  notice  her  unfortunate  defense  of  Lady  Byron, 
which  brought  cruel  criticism  upon  her  at  the  time,  and  which 
can  be  excused  now  only  because  of  the  loyal  friendship  which 
prompted  it.  Lady  Byron's  character  had  appealed  forcibly 
to  all  the  pity  and  romance  in  Mrs.  Stowe's  nature.  Now 
after  her  death  when  the  Recollections  of  the  Countess  Guic- 
cioli  were  achieving  popularity,  Mrs.  Stowe  felt  it  but  plain 
justice  to  her  friend  to  publish  Lady  Byron's  privately  com 
municated  version  of  her  trouble  with  the  poet.  This  version, 
appearing  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  September,  1869,  under  the 


322  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

title  The  True  Story  0}  Lady  Byron's  Li}e,  astonished  the  read 
ing  world  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean.  In  the  discussion  that 
followed  Mrs.  Stowe  thought  it  necessary  to  put  the  facts,  as 
she  believed  them,  before  the  English  public  in  a  small 
volume,  The  History  of  the  Byron  Controversy.  Lady  Byron's 
charges  against  her  husband  were  so  gross,  and  Mrs.  Stowe 
was  so  entirely  without  evidence  to  prove  them,  that  her  im 
pulsive  championship  left  her  in  a  position  of  embarrassment; 
her  admirers  must  always  feel  with  George  Eliot,  who  wrote 
to  Mrs.  Stowe  her  wish  that  the  subject  had  never  been 
stirred  up. 

In  1872  Mrs.  Stowe  accepted  an  engagement  to  give  read 
ings  from  her  works  throughout  the  New  England  states. 
The  following  year  she  repeated  this  successful  venture  in 
the  West,  but  both  absences  from  her  husband  had  been 
rendered  anxious  by  his  gradually  failing  health.  From  that 
time  her  life  was  quiet,  with  such  writing  to  occupy  her  as  she 
chose  to  do.  The  last  honor  she  received  was  a  reception 
which  Hough  ton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  her  publishers,  gave  her  in 
Newtonville.  A  poem  from  Whittier  was  read,  and  Dr. 
Holmes  spoke,  and  read  a  poem  of  his  own;  speeches  and 
letters  brought  the  guest  the  assurance  of  the  love  and  admi 
ration  that  rewarded  her  useful  life.  Her  brief  reply  was  de 
voted  with  characteristic  zeal  to  portraying  the  improvement 
of  the  negro's  condition  in  the  South,  and  to  hopeful  praise  of 
his  character. 

She  died  on  July  i,  1896,  and  was  buried  at  Andover  by  the 
side  of  her  husband,  who  had  died  ten  years  before. 

X 

It  is  Mrs.  Stowe' s  fate  to  be  remembered  among  American 
novelists  for  a  singlg_great_bopk.  It  seems  hardly  just  that 
her  records  of  earlier  New  England^  made  with  such  loving 
realism  as  she  was  capable  of,  should  be  dwarfed  into  neglect 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  323 

by  her  one  colossal  success.  There  will  still  be  thoughtful 
readers  to  cherish  them  for  their  tratiLand  humer.  But  it 
must  be  confessed  that  even  these  few  will  cherish  Mrs. 
Stowe's  general  novels  only  in  a  qualified  sort  of  devotion, 
after  all;  for  those  whose  wide  reading  gives  them  the  finer 
taste  to  appreciate  the  pure  gold  in  The  Minister's  Wooing  or 
Old  Town  Folks  or  Poganuc  People,  are  the  very  spirits  to 
whom  Mrs.  Stowe's  shortcomings  as  an  artist  will  seem  most 
grievous.  In  spite  of  themselves,  they  will  not  keep  quite  out 
of  mind  Lowell's  wicked  description  of  the  "  water  gruel  of 
fiction,  thinned  with  sentiment  and  thickened  with  morality." 
It  is  best  to  agree  with  the  public  judgment,  which  lets  Mrs. 
Stowe's  fame  rest  safely  on  the  inspired  book  in  which  the 
best  of  her  mind  and  heart  won  the  world.  Her  history  is 
complete,  with  little  poetical  exaggeration,  in  the  verse  of  one 
of  those  she  served, 

"  At  a  stroke  she  gave 
A  race  to  freedom  and  herself  to  fame." 


BRET  HARTE 


THE  American  frontier,  which  Cooper  immortalized  in 
the  beginning  of  its  western  course,  had  its  last  and  perhaps 
most  unique  record  in  the  writings  of  Bret  Harte.  His  fame 
is  identical  with  the  nation's  memory  of  early  California. 
Whether  the  picture  he  drew  was  accurate,  or  colored  by  a 
sentimental  temperament,  must  remain  a  conjecture;  for  he 
has  taught  his  admirers  to  see  the  rough  mining  life  through 
his  eyes,  and  his  critics,  when  they  would  controvert  him,  are 
embarrassed  by  the  lack  of  other  accounts  than  his.  So 
quickly  did  the  fabulous  progress  of  the  coast  overlay  with 
convention — comparatively  speaking — the  rude  society  he 
knew,  that  in  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp  he  already  viewed 
the  miners  through  an  idealizing  haze  of  romance;  and  a 
brief  period  later,  when  Eastern  repute  had  adopted  him,  the 
life  he  wrote  about  had  become  a  thing  of  memory,  and  no 
later  first-hand  portrait  of  it  could  fairly  be  compared  with 
his. 

One  reason  why  Bret  Harte's  fame  rests  in  California  is 
that  he  was  strangely  incapable  of  drawing  any  other  life.  He 
was  in  no  sense  a  literary  artist,  though  his  friends  have  made 
the  claim  for  him...;'  It  might  be  doubted  whether  he  had  even 
ordinary  talents  for  writing.  Certainly  the  glimpse  we  have 
of  him  in  his  editorial  days,  writing  and  rewriting  a  simple 
note  to  ask  a  man  to  dine  with  him,  suggests  not  scrupulous 
artistry,  but  some  meagerness  of  training  or  inspiration.  Only 
when  he  wrote  of  California  was  he  possessed  of  the  magic  of 

325 


326  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

genius.  His  temper  was  one  with  the  recklessness  and  ro 
mance  of  the  new  country;  he  had  the  advantage  also  of  ap 
proaching  it  from  the  East,  so  that  it  took  hold  of  him  with  the 
surprise  and  fascination  that  his  stirring  portraits  of  it  had  for 
Eastern  readers.  In  default  of  better  evidence,  one  can  well 
believe  his  California  stories  to  be  accurate,  since  only  these, 
of  all  he  wrote,  are  convincing,  and  their  power  is  in  the  sub 
ject,  not  in  the  writer's  skill. 

But  if  he  is  the  last  term  in  that  frontier  progression  which 
began  with  Cooper,  Bret  Harte  is  also  a  culminating  figure  in 
one  development  of  American  humor — a  development  with 
which,  it  is  needless  to  say,  Cooper  had  nothing  to  do.  The 
South  during  the  second  quarter  of  the  century  supplied  the 
material  for  much  humor  of  the  newspaper  kind,  and  out  of 
the  mass  of  ephemeral  sketches  dealing  with  border  or  pro 
vincial  life  came  half  a  dozen  books,  still  worth  reading,  which 
prepared  the  way  for  the  tales  of  the  mining  camps.  About 
1840  appeared  Augustus  Baldwin  Longstreet's  Georgia  Scenes, 
which  seems  to  have  had  the  good  fortune  of  influencing  a 
scene  in  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy's  The  Trumpet  Major.  In  1840 
appeared  a  similar  book  of  broad  humor,  Major  Jones's 
Courtship,  by  another  Georgian,  William  Tappan  Thompson. 
In  1846  and  1853,  respectively,  appeared  Johnson  Jones 
Hooper's  Adventures  oj  Captain  Simon  Suggs,  and  Joseph 
Glover  Baldwin's  Flush  Times  oj  Alabama  and  Mississippi. 
These  two  books  portrayed  the  unsettled  life  of  those  days  in 
Alabama  and  Mississippi,  and  one  thinks  of  them  as  finding 
their  way  up  the  great  river  for  the  inspiration  of  Mark 
Twain,  whose  early  humor  was  in  much  the  same  strain  as 
theirs.  From  Massachusetts  also  Captain  George  Horatio 
Derby — "John  Phoenix" — had  been  exploring  the  West  and 
making  known  to  the  East  the  humor  of  the  Californian  coast 
in  the  sketches  later  collected  as  Phcenixiana,  1855.  Bret 
Harte  is  not  a  lonely  figure  in  our  literature,  save  as  his  genius 


BRET  HARTE  327 

obscures  these  lesser  men;  nor  is  Dickens  the  only  source  of 
his  literary  tradition. 

II 

Bret  Harte  was  born  on  August  25,  1839,  in  Albany,  New 
York.  He  was  named  Francis  Bret,  but  shortened  the  name 
when  he  began  to  write.  His  father  was  a  teacher  of  Greek  at 
the  Albany  College,  a  small  seminary;  his  mother,  whose 
name  was  Truesdale,  apparently  contributed  to  his  character 
the  restless,  unliterary  part  of  it,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
story  that  she  accompanied  him  to  California.  His  ancestry 
was  of  English,  German,  and  Hebrew  sources;  his  father  was 
a  Roman  Catholic,  his  mother  a  Protestant.  If  his  heredity 
and  early  environment  served  him  at  all,  they  must  have  pre 
pared  him  for  the  heterogeneous  elements  of  California  life. 

He  was  a  delicate  child,  and  his  mother  seems  to  have 
sheltered  him  from  the  father's  admirable  purpose  to  give 
him  an  education.  He  was  allowed  to  run  pretty  wild,  most 
of  the  time  out-of-doors,  where  he  learned  to  know  the  little 
city,  and  according  to  his  own  later  account,  became  ac 
quainted  with  its  honorable  history,  and  idealized  its  traffic, 
the  number  of  ships  in  its  river  and  canals,  and  the  quantity 
of  timber,  wheat,  barley,  wool,  and  tobacco  in  their  cargoes. 
In  his  leisure  he  also  found  out  books;  he  read  Dombey  6r*  Son 
as  it  first  appeared,  in  his  seventh  year,  and  from  that  mo 
ment  Dickens  was  his  master.  Smollett,  Fielding,  Gold 
smith,  Cervantes,  and  the  other  great  story-tellers  that  would 
be  found  in  his  father's  library,  he  read  and  re-read,  and  when 
he  was  eleven  he  wrote  a  poem,  Autumn  Musings,  cynical  and 
worn  in  tone,  and  sent  it  to  the  New  York  Sunday  Atlas,  which 
published  it.  His  family  showed  unusual  sense  in  resisting 
the  usual  parental  impulse  to  praise;  in  fact,  they  pointed  out 
that  the  poem  was  very  poor  indeed,  and  Bret  Harte  remem 
bered  his  discouragement  so  keenly  that  he  afterward  won- 


328  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

dered  that  he  ever  wrote  verse  again.  It  would  have  been  a 
blessing  quite  unmixed  if  he  could  have  enjoyed  such  ef 
fective  discouragement  at  the  other  end  of  his  life. 

The  years  of  his  boyhood  in  Albany  he  idealized,  in  talk 
long  afterwards  with  his  friends;  and  he  told  of  his  dis 
appointment  on  revisiting  childhood  scenes.  But  it  may  be 
doubted  if  the  idealization  were  not  the  product  of  a  Dickens- 
like  sentimentality,  acquired  with  literary  consciousness, 
rather  than  the  true  result  of  memory;  one  may  well  feel  that 
Bret  Harte  never  wholly  lived  any  part  of  his  life  except  those 
years  in  California  on  which  his  genius  throve;  of  his  boyhood 
nothing  survives  in  his  writing,  and  he  never  made  his  own 
the  experiences  that  lay  open  to  him  in  the  East  or  in  Europe. 

The  circumstances  that  led  Bret  Harte  to  California  are  not 
quite  clear.  He  was  seventeen  years  old  when  he  sought  his 
fortune  there,  in  1856,  and  the  simplest  reason  for  his  going  is 
that  he  was  lured  by  the  promise  of  gold  in  the  new  country. 
But  it  appears  that  his  mother  accompanied  him — his  father 
was  already  dead — and  what  record  we  have  of  his  occupa 
tions  in  the  Pacific  state  suggests  that  he  had  no  very  definite 
purpose  at  all.  We  wonder  why  a  delicate  youth  should  have 
undertaken  the  long  journey  and  the  uncertain,  adventurous 
life,  and  we  wonder  why  his  mother  should  have  undertaken 
it  also.  Whatever  was  the  motive,  Bret  Harte  immediately 
found  himself  in  a  region  of  frontier  confusion,  every  separate 
whirlpool  of  which  aroused  some  vital  response  in  his  nature. 
His  very  lack  of  purpose  completed  his  education  by  with 
holding  him  from  almost  no  acquaintance  with  this  rough  but 
fascinating  chaos,  and  the  panorama  of  those  days  was 
stamped  in  his  heart  as  was  the  London  of  his  boyhood  on  the 
heart  of  Charles  Dickens;  The  Spaniard,  the  Greaser,  the 
Chinaman;  the  gambling  house,  the  warehouse  where  the 
trunks  of  forgotten  " forty-niners"  were  stored,  and  were 
finally  sold  at  auction;  the  scenes  of  sudden  death,  mingled 


BRET  HARTE  329 

with  glimpses  of  humor  and  chivalry  in  the  actors  of  the 
tragedy — all  that  went  to  make  up  the  stock  material  of  his 
stories,  Bret  Harte  learned  for  himself  at  first  hand.]  He  tried 
mining,  and  then  became  a  messenger  of  the  Adams  Express 
Company;  he  seems  to  have  prospered  financially  as  little  in 
one  position  as  the  other,  but  the  stage-coach  days  gave  him 
a  knowledge  of  the  road  and  its  dangers  which  he  later  drew 
upon  in  the  tales.  From  the  perils  of  the  stage-coach  he  went 
to  the  supposedly  quiet  position  of  drug  clerk.  But  a  mis 
take  in  a  prescription,  according  to  his  own  account,  proved 
nearly  fatal  to  the  patient,  and  Bret  Harte,  having  somehow 
learned  to  set  type,  became  a  printer  on  a  local  newspaper. 
A  brief  taste  of  this  career  satisfied  him,  and  he  became  a 
school  teacher.  But  as  the  bulk  of  the  expense  of  the  school, 
he  tells  us,  "was  borne  by  a  few  families  in  its  vicinity,  when 
two  of  them, — representing  perhaps  a  dozen  children  or 
pupils — one  morning  announced  their  intention  of  moving  to 
a  more  prosperous  and  newer  district,  the  school  was  incon 
tinently  closed." 

Bret  Harte  had  some  experience  also  as  an  Indian  fighter, — 
and  beyond  that  his  western  adventures  had  no  more  to  offer 
in  the  way  of  material  for  future  writing.  The  best  record 
of  these  adventures  is  in  the  use  he  made  of  them,  in  the 
stories  of  his  first  fortunate  period;  and  a  general  picture  of 
the  scene  and  its  manners  is  in  the  lecture  now  prefixed  to  the 
Tales  oj  the  Argonauts.  What  this  varied  life  gave  to  Bret 
Harte  needs  no  further  elucidation,  but  it  is  evident  that  he 
brought  to  the  opportunity  a  certain  adaptable  genius,  the 
power  to  enjoy  its  myriad  shapes,  which  he  says  was  the  secret 
of  life  in  Argonaut  days. 

Out  of  the  haphazard  career  which  he  first  knew  in  Cali 
fornia,  Bret  Harte  stepped,  by  a  stroke  of  good  fortune,  into 
a  somewhat  permanent  position,  from  which  he  could  culti 
vate  his  genius  with  considerable  freedom  of  mind.  He  had 


330  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

*  f. 

indeed  begun  his  writing  while  in  the  composing-room  of 
The  Golden  Era,  whose  editor,  Joe  Lawrence,  had  probably 
encouraged  him  to  contribute  at  the  usual  rate  of  a  dollar  a 
column.  In  this  paper  Mliss  appeared,  and  the  young  au 
thor  began  to  sign  his  name  to  his  articles  with  some  con 
sciousness  of  a  literary  personality.  But  he  was  not  estab 
lished  in  the  community  until  he  occupied  a  minor  position 
in  the  General  Surveyor's  office  in  San  Francisco,  a  post 
which  he  held  when  he  met  his  future  wife,  Miss  Anna  Gris- 
wold.  With  characteristic  optimism  he  undertook  the  re 
sponsibility  of  maintaining  a  home  on  what  must  have  been 
meager  resources;  he  was  married  August  n,  1862,  by  the 
Methodist  minister  at  San  Rafael. 

This  optimistic  step  was  justified,  shortly  after,  by  Bret 
Harte's  appointment  as  secretary  to  the  Superintendent  of  the 
Mint.  In  his  account  of  Bohemian  Days  in  San  Francisco 
he  tells  us  that  on  his  arrival  he  first  lived  with  "a  distant  re 
lation — a  second  or  third  cousin,"  who  kept  "a  rather  ex 
pensive  half-club,  half-restaurant  in  the  lower  part  of  the 
building."  Nearby  stood  the  United  States  Branch  Mint, 
"and  its  tall  factory-like  chimneys,"  he  says,  "overshadowed 
my  cousin's  roof.  Some  scandal  had  arisen  from  an  illegal 
leakage  of  gold  in  the  manipulation  of  that  metal  during  the 
various  processes  of  smelting  and  refining.  One  of  the  ex 
cuses  offered  was  the  volatilization  of  the  precious  metal  and 
its  escape  through  the  draft  of  the  tall  chimneys.  All  San 
Francisco  laughed  at  this  explanation  until  it  learned  that  a 
corroboration  of  the  theory  had  been  established  by  an  assay 
of  the  dust  and  grime  on  the  roofs  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Mint. 
These  had  yielded  distinct  traces  of  gold.  San  Francisco 
stopped  laughing,  and  that  portion  of  it  which  had  roofs  in 
the  neighborhood  at  once  began  prospecting.  Claims  were 
staked  out  on  these  airy  placers,  and  my  cousin's  roof,  being 
the  very  next  one  to  the  chimney,  and  presumably  'in  the 


BRET  HARTE  331 

lead,'  was  disposed  of  to  a  speculative  company  for  a  con 
siderable  sum.  I  remember  my  cousin  telling  me  the  story — 
for  the  occurrence  was  quite  recent — and  taking  me  with  him 
to  the  roof  to  explain  it,  but  I  am  afraid  I  was  more  attracted 
by  the  mystery  of  the  closely  guarded  building,  and  the 
strangely  tinted  smoke  which  arose  from  this  temple  where 
money  was  actually  being  '  made,'  than  by  anything  else.  Nor 
did  I  dream  as  I  stood  there — a  very  lanky,  open-mouthed 
youth — that  only  three  or  four  years  later  I  should  be  the 
secretary  of  its  superintendent.  In  my  more  adventurous  am 
bition  I  am  afraid  I  would  have  accepted  the  suggestion  half 
heartedly.  Merely  to  have  helped  to  stamp  the  gold  which 
other  people  had  found  was  by  no  means  a  part  of  my  youth 
ful  dreams." 

The  Superintendent  of  the  Mint  must  have  been  somewhat 
lenient  with  his  secretary,  or  Bret  Harte  must  have  shown  a 
conscientious  interest  in  official  duties  which  deserted  him 
later  in  life,  for  his  connection  with  the  Mint  seems  to  have 
been  altogether  happy.  His  work  left  him  leisure  to  write 
and  to  make  friends;  to  his  office  at  the  Mint  a  literary  ac 
quaintance,  George  Barnes,  brought  Samuel  Clemens,  one 
memorable  day,  when  the  great  humorist  told  to  his  small 
but  delighted  audience  the  story  of  The  Jumping  Frog  of 
Calaveras.  It  was  from  his  office  in  the  Mint  that  Bret  Harte 
began  to  publish  his  burlesques,  the  Condensed  Novels,  in 
The  Golden  Era,  and  continued  them  in  The  Calijornian. 
And  while  occupying  this  position  he  met  Mrs.  Fremont, 
wife  of  the  Pathfinder,  and  through  her,  Thomas  Starr  King, 
the  preacher,  after  whom  his  second  son  was  named,  and  for 
whom  he  felt  perhaps  the  greatest  admiration  he  paid  to  any 
man  in  the  West.  Among  his  other  friends  were  Charles 
Henry  Webb,  who  owned  and  edited  The  Calijornian, 
founded  in  1864,  and  Charles  Warren  Stoddard,  the  author 
of  South  Sea  Idyls. 


332  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

In  1865  appeared  Bret  Harte's  first  original  volume,  a  book 
of  poems  entitled  The  Lost  Galleon.  It  must  have  been  be 
fore  this  date  that  he  edited  the  collection  of  western  verse 
which  has  its  immortality  in  his  own  account  of  it,  My  First 
Book.  Humorous  in  intention  as  his  record  obviously  is,  it 
gives  a  vivid  cartoon  of  literary  endeavor  and  literary  criticism 
at  that  time  and  place.  A  bookseller  engaged  the  young  un 
suspecting  writer  to  compile  a  single  volume  of  representative 
Californian  verse,  such  as  had  appeared  in  the  periodicals  and 
newspapers  of  the  coast.  The  bookseller  was  unwise  enough 
to  announce  his  purpose  to  the  general  public,  and  the  editor 
was  deluged  with  unsolicited  material,  even  manuscript  con 
tributions,  until  the  volume,  though  carefully  winnowed;  was 
three  times  its  desired  size.  "There  was  clearly  nothing  to 
do,"  Bret  Harte  goes  on,  "but  to  make  a  more  rigid  selec 
tion — a  difficult  performance  when  the  material  was  uni 
formly  on  a  certain  dead  level,  which  it  is  not  necessary  to 
define  here.  Among  the  rejections  were,  of  course,  the  usual 
plagiarisms  from  well-known  authors  imposed  upon  an  inex 
perienced  country  press;  several  admirable  pieces  detected 
as  acrostics  of  patent  medicines,  and  certain  veiled  libels  and 
indecencies  such  as  mark  the  ' first'  publications  on  blank 
walls  and  fences  of  the  average  youth."  When  the  reduction 
was  finally  made,  and  the  book  published,  it  sold  with  a 
strange  rapidity,  apparently  to  all  those  gentlemen  who 
thought  their  verses  should  be  found  in  it.  A  storm  of  criti 
cism  arose  from  the  papers  whose  pet  writer  had  been 
omitted,  and  Bret  Harte  gives  several  examples  of  what  he 
calls  the  "direct  style  of  the  Californian  'sixties,' "  of  which 
the  following  is  usually  considered  the  most  characteristic : 

"The  hogwash  and  'purp'  stuff  ladled  out  from  the  slop- 
bucket  of  Messrs.  -  -  &  Co.,  of  'Frisco,  by  some  lop- 
eared  Eastern  apprentice,  and  called  '  A  compilation  of  Cali 
fornian  Verse,'  might  be  passed  over,  so  far  as  criticism  goes. 


BRET  HARTE  333 

A  club  in  the  hands  of  any  able-bodied  citizen  of  Red  Dog,  and 
a  steamboat  ticket  to  the  Bay,  cheerfully  contributed  from 
this  office,  would  be  all-sufficient.  But  when  an  imported 
greenhorn  dares  to  call  his  flapdoodle  mixture  '  Calif  ornian,' 
it  is  an  insult  to  the  state  that  has  produced  the  gifted  *  Yellow 
Hammer,'  whose  lofty  flights  have  from  time  to  time  dazzled 
our  readers  in  the  columns  of  the  'Jay  Hawk.'  That  this 
complacent  editorial  jackass,  browsing  among  the  dock  and 
thistles  which  he  had  served  up  in  this  volume,  should  make 
no  allusion  to  California's  greatest  bard,  is  rather  a  confession 
of  his  idiocy  than  a  slur  upon  the  genius  of  our  esteemed  con 
tributor." 

The  amusing  account  Bret  Harte  gives  of  the  care  with 
which  he  edited  this  volume,  would  probably  stand  as  a  de 
scription  of  all  his  literary  work  at  this  time.  He  was  a  con 
scientious  craftsman,  as  all  his  friends  of  those  days  bear 
witness.  One  gets  the  impression  that  this  carefulness  was  <* 
due  to  thinness  of  inspiration,  more  than  to  fastidious  taste, 
yet  the  evidence  shows  that  he  was  hard  to  satisfy  in  his  own 
work.  However  rough  had  been  his  western  experiences,  as 
a  writer  he  was  a  child  of  luxury  from  the  first;  he  could  not 
get  on,  says  one  comrade,  unless  the  writing  materials,  the 
light  and  heat,  and  even  the  adjustment  of  the  furniture  of  the 
writing  room  were  as  he  desired.  In  personal  appearance 
also  he  showed  nothing  of  the  frontiersman.  Joaquin  Miller 
gives  the  portrait  of  him  in  those  days :  "  I  found  a  spare,  slim 
young  man,  in  a  chip  hat  and  a  summer  dress  of  the  neatest 
and  nattiest  cut,  who  took  me  cordially  into  his  confidence  at 
once.  I  liked  his  low  voice,  his  quiet,  earnest,  and  unaffected 
manner  from  the  first.  He  had  neat  editorial  rooms,  where  he 
made  me  welcome,  although  he  was  then  engaged  as  Secre 
tary  in  the  Mint.  ...  I  think  he  was  the  cleanest  man  I  ever 
met.  He  was  always  as  clean,  modest,  and  graceful  of  speech 
as  a  girl." 


334  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

III 

His  life  in  a  unique  frontier  had  not  stunted  Bret  Harte's 
interest  in  the  older  world ;  his  early  prose  bore  witness  to  the 
influence  of  Charles  Dickens,  and  his  first  volume  contained 
sincere  patriotic  lyrics  inspired  by  the  war.  But  neither  liter 
ary  tradition  nor  public  affairs  on  a  large  scale  counted  per 
manently  with  him.  He  had  one  message  and  no  other  to 
\  leave  us,  and  the  fortuitous  discovery  of  that  message,  as  de- 
<  sirable  and  unexpected  as  an  argonaut  mine,  now  brought 
\  him  into  sudden  fame. 

In  1868  Anton  Roman,  a  San  Franciscan  bookseller  and 
publisher,  founded  a  new  magazine,  The  Overland  Monthly, 
and  upon  the  advice  of  Stoddard,  Noah  Brooks  and  others, 
invited  Bret  Harte  to  edit  it.  The  venture  seemed  at  first 
somewhat  precarious,  but  the  young  editor  was  finally  in 
stalled,  and  contributed  to  the  first  number,  in  July,  a  lauda 
tory  poem  to  San  Francisco.  As  the  magazine  advertised 
itself  as  "  devoted  to  the  development  of  the  country,"  the 
energetic  lines  may  be  suspected  of  the  official  laureate  note. 
It  had  indeed  been  Bret  Harte's  intention  to  write  a  short  story 
for  the  magazine's  first  appearance,  but  he  could  not  com 
plete  it  in  time,  and  it  was  not  till  the  August  number  that  he 
printed  his  famous  Luck  oj  Roaring  Camp,  the  history  of 
which  he  makes  almost  as  entertaining  as  an  imagined  tale. 

That  this  story  was  written  with  the  deliberate  intention  to 
exploit  a  local  and  peculiar  type  of  life,  is  the  author's  un 
mistakable  claim.  It  is  not  necessarily  uncharitable  to  sup 
pose  that  since  the  claim  was  made  long  after  the  author  had 
won  world-wide  recognition,  perhaps  he  read  back  into  his 
half-forgotten  intentions  something  of  his  fortunate  achieve 
ment.  But  what  is  more  interesting  and  quite  beyond  ques 
tion,  is  the  fact  that  this  first  great  picture  of  Bret  Harte's 
country  was  rejected  by  that  country,  and  accepted  as  true, 


BRET  HARTE  335 

with  much  reluctance,  only  after  the  East  had  greeted  the 
writer  as  a  master.  To  be  rejected  by  the  people  he  describes 
is,  however,  the  common  fate  of  the  novelist  of  a  section. 

The  trouble  with  the  story  began,  Bret  Harte  says,  before 
it  was  printed. 

"He  had  not  yet  received  the  proof  sheets  when  he  was 
suddenly  summoned  to  the  office  of  the  publisher,  whom  he 
found  standing  the  picture  of  dismay  and  anxiety  with  the 
proof  before  him.  The  indignation  and  stupefaction  of  the 
author  can  well  be  understood  when  he  was  told  that  the 
printer,  instead  of  returning  the  proofs  to  him,  submitted  them 
to  the  publisher,  with  the  emphatic  declaration  that  the  matter 
thereof  was  so  indecent,  irreligious,  and  improper  that  his 
proof-reader — a  young  lady — had  with  difficulty  been  induced 
to  continue  its  perusal,  and  that  he,  as  a  friend  of  the  pub 
lisher  and  a  well-wisher  of  the  magazine,  was  impelled  to  pre 
sent  to  him  personally  this  shameless  evidence  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  editor  was  imperilling  the  future  of  that  enter 
prise.  It  should  be  premised  that  the  critic  was  a  man  of 
character  and  standing,  the  head  of  a  large  printing  estab 
lishment,  a  church  member,  and,  the  author  thinks,  a  deacon. 
In  which  circumstances  the  publisher  frankly  admitted  to  the 
author  that,  while  he  could  not  agree  with  all  cf  the  printer's 
criticisms,  he  thought  the  story  open  to  grave  objections,  and 
its  publication  of  doubtful  expediency." 

The  offended  author  read  over  his  story  in  its  new  printed 
dress,  and  was  so  convinced  of  its  quality  that  he  declined  to 
change  it.  But  no  one  could  be  found  who  thought  as  well 
of  it  as  he  did,  and  it  was  finally  suggested  that  as  his  editorial 
insight  must  have  been  prejudiced  in  his  own  interest  as  an 
author,  it  would  be  becoming  for  him  to  withdraw  the  story. 

''This  last  suggestion  had  the  effect  of  ending  all  further  dis 
cussion,  for  he  at  once  informed  the  publisher  that  the  ques 
tion  of  the  propriety  of  the  story  was  no  longer  at  issue;  the 
only  question  was  of  his  capacity  to  exercise  the  proper  edito- 


336  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

rial  judgment;  and  that  unless  he  was  permitted  to  test  that 
capacity  by  the  publication  of  the  story,  and  abide  squarely  by 
the  result,  he  must  resign  his  editorial  position.  The  pub 
lisher,  possibly  struck  with  the  author's  confidence,  possibly 
from  kindliness  of  disposition  to  a  younger  man,  yielded,  and 
The  Luck  oj  Roaring  Camp  was  published  in  the  current 
number  of  the  magazine  for  which  it  was  written,  as  it  was 
written,  without  emendation,  omission,  alteration,  or  apol 
ogy.  A  not  inconsiderable  part  of  the  grotesqueness  of  the 
situation  was  the  feeling,  which  the  author  retained  through 
out  the  whole  affair,  of  the  perfect  sincerity,  good  faith,  and 
seriousness  of  his  friend's — the  printer's — objection,  and  for 
many  days  thereafter  he  was  haunted  by  a  consideration  of 
the  suffering  of  this  conscientious  man,  obliged  to  assist  ma 
terially  in  disseminating  the  dangerous  and  subversive  doc 
trines  contained  in  this  baleful  fiction.  What  solemn  protests 
must  have  been  laid  with  the  ink  on  the  rollers  and  impressed 
upon  those  wicked  sheets!  What  pious  warnings  must  have 
been  secretly  folded  and  stitched  in  that  number  of  The  Over- 
land  Monthly!  Across  the  chasm  of  years  and  distance  the 
author  stretches  forth  the  hand  of  sympathy  and  forgiveness, 
not  forgetting  the  gentle  proof-reader,  that  chaste  and  un 
known  nymph,  whose  mantling  cheeks  and  downcast  eyes 
gave  the  first  indications  of  warning. 

"But  the  troubles  of  the  Luck  were  far  from  ended.  It  had 
secured  an  entrance  into  the  world,  but,  like  its  own  hero,  it 
was  born  with  an  evil  reputation,  and  to  a  community  that  had 
yet  to  learn  to  love  it.  The  secular  press,  with  one  or  two  ex 
ceptions,  received  it  coolly,  and  referred  to  its  'singularity;' 
the  religious  press  frantically  excommunicated  it,  and  anathe 
matized  it  as  the  offspring  of  evil;  the  high  promise  of  The 
Overland  Monthly  was  said  to  have  been  ruined  by  its  birth ; 
Christians  were  cautioned  against  pollution  by  its  contact; 
practical  business  men  were  gravely  urged  to  condemn  and 
frown  upon  this  picture  of  Californian  society  that  was  not 
conducive  to  Eastern  immigration ;  its  hapless  author  was  held 
up  to  obloquy  as  a  man  who  had  abused  a  sacred  trust.  .  .  . 
But,  fortunately,  the  young  Overland  Monthly  had  in  its 
first  number  secured  a  hearing  and  position  throughout  the 
American  Union,  and  the  author  waited  the  larger  verdict. 


BRET  HARTE  337 

The  publisher,  albeit  his  worst  fears  were  confirmed,  was  not 
a  man  to  weakly  regret  a  position  he  had  once  taken,  and 
waited  also.  The  return  mail  from  the  East  brought  a  letter 
addressed  to  the  'Editor  of  The  Overland  Monthly'  enclosing 
a  letter  from  Fields,  Osgood  &  Co.,  the  publishers  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  addressed  to  the — to  them — unknown  '  Au 
thor  of  The  Luck  oj  Roaring  Camp.''  This  the  author  opened, 
and  found  to  be  a  request,  upon  the  most  flattering  terms,  for 
a  story  for  the  Atlantic  similar  to  the  Luck.  The  same  mail 
brought  newspapers  and  reviews  welcoming  the  little  found 
ling  of  Californian  literature  with  an  enthusiasm  that  half 
frightened  its  author;  but  with  the  placing  of  that  letter  in  the 
hands  of  the  publisher,  who  chanced  to  be  standing  by  his 
side,  and  who  during  those  dark  days  had,  without  the  au 
thor's  faith,  sustained  the  author's  position,  he  felt  that  his 
compensation  was  full  and  complete." 

The  Californian  audience  that  at  first  rejected  The  Luck 
oj  Roaring  Camp  was  of  course  not  the  same  community  that 
figured  in  its  pages.  There  seems  to  have  been  a  wide  differ 
ence  in  this  as  in  other  respects  between  the  typical  mining 
camp  and  the  enterprising  city  community,  which  aspired  to 
the  sound  prosperity  and  the  conventional  good  name  of  the 
East.  To  this  all  but  Puritan  audience  Bret  Harte  had  ad 
dressed  Mliss  and  his  other  early  work,  and  it  was  not  en 
tirely  strange  that  they  should  have  been  reluctant  to  see  the 
new  story  go  out  as  descriptive  of  them.  Their  taste  in  litera 
ture  was  made  more  cautious  by  frontier  jealousy  for  their 
rising  city;  they  read  Eastern  magazines  of  the  better  class, 
and  even  foreign  papers  of  acknowledged  quality  were  not 
uncommon.  Bret  Harte  later  found  more  difficulty,  he  says, 
in  procuring  a  copy  of  Punch  in  an  English  Provincial  town, 
than  in  the  prosperous  mining  centers  of  the  West.  That 
there  was  in  California  this  conventional,  conservative  society 
must  be  remembered  when  the  truth  of  Bret  Harte' s  pictures 
is  weighed;  this  normal  part  of  the  community,  which  his  best 


338  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

work  neglects,  never  cared  to  acknowledge  that  he  had  ac 
curately  portrayed  California,  and  their  objection  seems  per 
fectly  reasonable,  in  the  sense  that  he  portrayed  only  the 
section  of  the  life  that  interested  him.  In  another  sense,  how 
ever,  his  genius  did  create  a  complete  record  of  the  Coast,  for 
in  such  annotations  as  the  preface  from  which  we  quoted,  he 
left  perhaps  the  most  vivid  glimpses  we  have  of  the  trans 
planted  Puritan;  the  scrupulous  printer  has  no  other  im 
mortality  than  by  way  of  foot-note  to  the  masterpiece  he 
would  have  suppressed. 

The  success  of  the  story  led  the  author  to  contribute  to  his 
magazine  The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  Tennessee's  Partner,  and 
other  tales,  which  within  a  year  reappeared  in  a  volume  en 
titled  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp  and  other  Sketches.  Mean 
while  as  editor  he  displayed  both  energy  and  ability  in  en 
couraging  his  writers  and  building  up  the  Monthly,  Stoddard 
and  Joaquin  Miller  testified  to  the  inspiring  help  they  had 
from  one  who  might  easily  have  been  preoccupied  with  his 
own  success.  Along  with  this  literary  work  Bret  Harte  was 
trying  to  continue  his  duties  in  the  Mint— with  what  profit  to 
the  Government  it  is  impossible  now  to  tell.  The  appearance 
in  the  magazine  of  The  Heathen  Chinee,  in  1870,  brought  his 
fame  to  such  a  sudden  height  that  the  Eastern  world  of  letters 
persuaded  him  to  return  to  it.  He  was  never  proud  of  the 
extravagant  verses  that  took  the  English-speaking  world  by 
storm;  Ah  Sin,  Truthful  James  and  Bill  Nye  were  the  easiest 
names  with  which  to  bore  him  at  a  dinner  party;  his  interest 
in  the  poem  lay  in  his  own  humorous  audacity  in  modeling 
its  versification  upon  the  antiphonal  dirge  at  the  end  of  Swin 
burne's  Atalanta  in  Calydon.  Yet  this  poem  brought  to  him 
an  invitation  that  was  almost  a  command  to  return  to  his  own 
part  of  the  country,  and  accordingly,  early  in  1871,  he  left 
California  for  New  York. 

His  progress  across  the  continent  was  the  great  triumph  of 


BRET  HARTE  339 

his  life.  Looking  back  now,  we  find  it  difficult  to  understand 
such  a  furor  of  welcome  as  awaited  him  in  city  after  city.  He 
was  hailed  as  a  new  prophet  in  American  letters  with  far  more 
acclaim  than  any  of  the  older  prophets  had  enjoyed — partly 
because  of  the  strangeness  of  the  world  he  portrayed,  and 
partly,  perhaps,  because  of  a  fascination  in  himself  which 
could  have  no  other  record  than  the  enthusiastic  memory 
of  his  friends.  At  first  he  lived  up  to  the  high  expectations, 
especially  on  the  personal  side;  he  made  an  unusually  in 
teresting  lion,  so  striking  in  appearance  was  he,  with  so  much 
vague  romance  for  a  halo.  What  sort  of  fascination  he  ex 
erted  upon  the  Eastern  mind  may  be  illustrated  from  Fanny 
Kemble's  impression  of  him  at  a  slightly  later  date: 

"He  reminded  me  of  our  old  pirate  and  bandit  friend, 
Trelawney,  in  his  appearance,  though  the  latter  was  an  al 
most  orientally  dark-complexioned  man,  and  Mr.  Bret  Harte 
was  comparatively  fair.  They  were  both  tall,  well-made  men 
of  fine  figure;  both,  too,  were  handsome,  with  a  peculiar  ex 
pression  of  face,  which  suggested  small  success  to  any  one 
who  might  engage  in  personal  conflict  with  them. 

"He  told  us  of  one  of  his  striking  experiences,  and  his  tell 
ing  of  it  made  it  singularly  impressive.  He  had  arrived  at 
night  at  a  solitary  house  of  call  on  his  way,  absolutely  isolated 
and  far  distant  from  any  other  dwelling — a  sort  of  rough, 
roadside  tavern,  known  and  resorted  to  by  the  wanderers  of 
that  region.  Here  he  was  to  pass  the  night.  The  master  of 
the  house,  to  whom  he  was  known,  answered  his  question  as 
to  whether  any  one  else  was  there  by  giving  the  name  of  a 
notorious  desperado,  who  had  committed  some  recent  out 
rage,  and  in  search  of  whom  the  wild  justices — the  lynchers 
of  the  wilderness — were  scouring  the  district.  This  guest,  the 
landlord  said,  was  hiding  in  the  house,  and  was  to  leave  it  (if 
he  was  still  alive)  the  next  day.  Bret  Harte,  accustomed  to 
rough  company,  went  quietly  to  bed  and  to  sleep,  but  was 
aroused  in  the  middle  of  the  night  by  the  arrival  of  a  party  of 
horsemen,  who  called  up  the  master  of  the  house  and  inquired 
if  the  man  they  were  in  pursuit  of  was  with  him.  Upon  re- 


340  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

ceiving  his  repeated  positive  assurance  that  he  was  not,  they 
remounted  their  horses  and  resumed  their  search. 

"At  break  of  day  Bret  Harte  took  his  departure,  finding 
that  for  the  first  part  of  his  journey  he  was  to  have  the  hiding 
hero  of  the  night  (thief  or  murderer,  probably)  for  his  com 
panion,  to  whom,  on  his  departure,  the  master  of  the  house 
gave  the  most  reiterated,  precise,  and  minute  directions  as  to 
the  only  road  by  which  it  would  be  possible  that  he  could 
escape  his  pursuers,  Bret  Harte  meanwhile  listening  to  these 
directions  as  if  they  were  addressed  to  himself.  They  rode 
silently  for  a  short  time  and  then  the  fugitive  began  to  talk — 
not  about  his  escape,  nor  about  the  danger  of  the  past  night, 
nor  about  the  crime  he  had  committed,  but  about  Dickens1 
last  story,  in  which  he  expressed  such  an  eager  and  enthusi 
astic  interest,  that  he  would  have  passed  the  turning  of  the 
road  by  which  he  was  to  have  made  his  escape  if  Bret  Harte 
had  not  pointed  it  out  to  him,  saying,  'That  is  your  way.'  " 

The  national  attention  to  Bret  Harte  was  noticed  abroad, 
and  was  practically  his  introduction  to  foreign  readers.  One 
English  paper  devoted  much  space  to  his  triumphal  progress 
across  the  Continent,  half  in  derision  of  America's  enthusiasm, 
and  half  in  appreciation  of  his  true  genius.  It  was  once  asked, 
the  paper  said,  Who  reads  an  American  book  ? 

"The  question  is  now  repeated  only  as  a  note  of  triumph. 
But  since  Sydney  Smith's  phrase  has  become  its  own  refuta 
tion,  there  have  not  been  those  wanting  who,  in  the  spirit  of 
it,  have  asserted  that  America  has  not  known  its  great  writers 
until  they  had  been  recognized  by  the  Old  World,  and  the 
earliest  fame  of  Irving,  Emerson,  and  Hawthorne,  has  been 
claimed  as  European.  Whatever  may  be  said  on  this  very 
doubtful  theory,  certain  it  is  that  in  the  present  instance 
America  has  got  far  ahead  of  us,  for  we  fear  that  not  a  few 
of  the  most  intelligent  English  readers  will  be  found  asking, 
Who  is  Mr.  Bret  Harte  ? — and  what  has  he  said  or  done  ? 

"We  answer,  he  is  a  young  author  who  has  succeeded  in 
making  all  America  burst  into  inextinguishable  laughter.  He 
has  done  this  not  by  ingenuity  of  misspelling,  nor  by  gro- 
tesqueness  of  literary  grimace,  but  by  a  series  of  really  hu- 


BRET  HARTE  341 

morous  works,  capped  by  a  local  satire  that  has  raised  the 
cachinnations  into  a  hearty  roar  that  can  only  be  described  as 
national.  Though  Mr.  Harte's  universal  popularity  is  in  his 
own  country  recent,  and  has  not  found  us  on  this  side  of  the 
water  sufficiently  released  from  the  heaviness  of  the  tragedy 
at  our  doors  to  swell  it,  yet  there  are  some  in  this  country,  as 
in  America,  whose  divining  rods  search  out  genius  as  far  as 
California,  and  distinguish  it  from  the  base  ores,  as  the 
miners,  with  whom  Mr.  Harte  is  so  familiar,  their  nuggets  of 
gold.  There  have  been  readers  here  also  of  the  excellent 
Overland  Monthly,  whose  appearance  in  California  was  one 
sign  of  the  disappearance  of  chaos  and  of  the  beginning  of  a 
higher  social  stratification.  They  have  marked  in  that  peri 
odical  the  lexquisite  sketches  of  life,  portraits  of  character, 
curious  stories — now  replete  with  drollery,  now  deepening 
with  pathetic  touches—Which  already  announced  that  a  mind 
of  singular  power  and  originality  had  begun  its  task  in  that 
far-off  country." 

Other  countries  were  as  cordial  as  England.  The  new 
stories  promptly  appeared  in  French,  and  were  favorably  crit 
icized  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  and  in  Germany  Ferdi 
nand  Freiligrath  made  an  admirable  translation  of  the  best 
tales,  to  which  he  prefixed  a  charming  introduction.  With 
this  generous  greeting  from  the  high  places  of  his  profession, 
Bret  Harte  must  have  felt  that  his  destiny  was  irresistible;  he 
must  have  dreamt,  one  would  think,  of  some  undivined  ore  of 
inspiration  to  be  struck  in  the  East,  to  match  his  phenomenal 
fortune  in  the  West.  If  we  allow  ourselves  the  privilege  of 
that  speculation  which  the  true  historian  deplores,  and  wonder 
what  would  have  been  Bret  Harte's  fate  if  in  his  hour  of  pros 
perity  he  had  remained  on  the  Coast,  we  can  see  now  at  least 
an  equal  chance  of  happiness  for  him;  we  may  even  be 
tempted  to  think  that  his  final  choice  of  the  East  was  a  mis 
take.  His  was  not  a  nature  to  bear  prosperity  when  it  be 
came  luxury,  and  California  challenged  his  genius  rather 
than  encouraged  it;  the  unsettled,  precarious  land  still  kept 


342  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

a  bracing  tone  of  danger  which  he  needed.  Had  he  stayed 
in  San  Francisco,  it  seems  that  a  busy  and  honored  career 
would  have  unfolded  for  him.  Before  he  decided  upon  the 
change,  he  had  been  appointed  Professor  of  Literature  in  the 
University  of  California,  and  had  he  entered  upon  his  duties, 
the  teaching  blood  of  his  inheritance  might  have  asserted  it 
self,  and  in  any  case  his  place  in  the  community  would  have 
been  increasingly  dignified  and  permanent.  But  he  put  his 
literary  fate  boldly  to  the  venture,  and  came  East,  and,  as  his 
kindest  critics  must  think,  he  never  again  justified  the  high 
hope  of  his  countrymen  in  his  genius. 

IV 

New  York  was  Bret  Harte's  new  home,  though  he  had  en 
gagements  to  write  for  magazines  in  other  places.  His  work 
was  in  demand,  but  chiefly  that  part  of  his  work  which  dealt 
with  California.  The  public  was  not  yet  sated  with  his 
Western  World ;  if  he  drew  few  pictures,  and  none  important, 
of  any  other  life,  his  excuse  can  easily  be  found  in  the  pres 
sure  upon  him  to  repeat  his  successes.  His  golden  fortune 
followed  him,  too,  in  the  form  of  innumerable  opportunities. 
Two  Men  of  Sandy  Bar,  an  arrangement  from  other  stories, 
was  put  together  for  Stuart  Robson;  the  one  long  novel  in  his 
works,  Gabriel  Conroy,  was  written;  and  one  notable  varia 
tion  from  the  frontier  themes  was  made  in  Thankful  Blossom, 
written  in  the  old  Washington  house  at  Morristown.  But  in 
some  fatal  way  the  luck  had  changed,  and  it  was  not  long  be 
fore  the  heralded  genius  had  proved  a  disappointment  to  all 
but  a  few  loyal  friends. 

The  simplest  explanation  of  what  happened  is  to  say  that 
Bret  Harte's  head  was  turned  by  his  sudden  success.  In  the 
East  as  in  California  he  was  the  same  gentle,  fascinating 
spirit,  winning  easily  the  good  will  of  all  who  met  him,  and 
leaving  them  with  a  sense  of  his  genius.  But  he  had  become 


BRET  HARTE  343 

indolent  and  to  a  certain  extent  irresponsible.  Not  all  of  his 
contracts  were  fulfilled,  and  what  he  did  write  was  not  of  a 
kind  to  advance  his  reputation.  At  the  same  time  he  got  into 
the  habit  of  living  at  expensive  places  in  the  summers — New 
port  and  Lenox  for  example, — and  very  shortly  he  was  living 
beyond  his  means,  with  no  reasonable  prospect  of  getting  on 
his  feet  again.  His  fame  had  not  yet  made  him  rich  and  he 
lacked  the  discretion  to  wait  quietly  till  his  ship  should  come 
in.  Moreover,  he  had  a  childlike  ignorance  of  finance,  ex 
cusable  in  a  poet,  but  not  likely  to  render  him  popular  with 
his  creditors.  It  was  easy  for  cheap  scandal-mongers  to  cir 
culate  false  reports  of  his  business  methods,  some  of  which 
amused  him,  but  none  of  them  could  do  him  other  than  harm. 
He  was  particularly  amused,  as  his  biographer  tells  us,  by  the 
legend  "that  while  he  lived  at  Morristown  he  retained  the 
postage  stamps  sent  to  him  for  his  autographs,  and  these  ap 
plications  were  so  numerous  that  with  them  he  paid  his 
butcher's  bill;  but  that  the  slander  had  been  denied  on  the  au 
thority  of  the  butcher!" 

Partly  to  offset  the  increased  expenditure  of  Eastern  life, 
partly  no  doubt  to  satisfy  the  popular  wish  to  see  and  hear 
him,  Bret  Harte  began  to  lecture  on  his  California  memories. 
Several  of  the  experiences  we  have  quoted  were  first  given  to 
the  public  in  this  oral  form,  and  the  belauded  young  author 
seems  at  first  to  have  been  successful,  financially  and  other 
wise.  Boston  accepted  him  in  a  most  thoroughgoing  way,  to 
judge  by  an  enthusiastic  letter  of  James  T.  Fields'.  Artists 
and  clergymen — "  chaps  with  brains,"  were  in  his  audience 
and  they  had  not  heard  so  good  a  lecture  for  many  a  year. 
But  other  places  were  less  appreciative,  and  in  Canada  es 
pecially  Harte  was  thoroughly  discouraged.  His  letters  to  his 
wife  in  the  early  spring  of  1873  show  his  distaste  for  lecturing 
as  an  occupation;  they  also  show  that  his  manager  was  in 
capable,  and  that  much  of  the  ill  success  of  the  lecturing 


344  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

doubtless  was  to  be  laid  at  that  door.  But  it  may  well  be 
questioned  by  those  of  us  who  never  saw  Bret  Harte  whether 
he  had  the  qualities  of  a  lecturer  for  the  generation  that  knew 
Phillips  and  Curtis  and  remembered  Emerson.  The  lyceum 
tradition  was  still  high;  the  people  who  went  to  lectures  did  so 
with  a  serious  purpose;  at  least  they  expected  the  lecturer  to 
stand  for  a  serious  purpose,  as  to  their  minds  Mrs.  Stowe  did 
when  she  gave  her  readings.  Whatever  Bret  Harte's  personal 
charm,  he  stood  for  no  cause,  and  his  measure  of  success  on 
the  platform  seems  to  have  been  but  a  fad.  In  the  Autumn 
of  1873  ne  nad  to  report  some  adverse  along  with  kindly 
comment,  in  a  letter  from  St.  Louis:  "I  certainly  never  ex 
pected  to  be  mainly  criticized  for  being  what  I  am  not,  a 
handsome  fop;  but  this  assertion  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  the 
criticism.  They  may  be  right — I  dare  say  they  are — in  in 
sisting  that  I  am  no  orator,  have  no  special  faculty  for  speak 
ing,  no  fire,  no  dramatic  earnestness  or  expression,  but  when 
they  intimate  that  I  am  running  on  my  good  looks — save  the 
mark !  I  confess  I  get  hopelessly  furious.  You  will  be  amused 
to  hear  that  my  gold  'studs'  have  again  become  'diamonds/ 
my  worn-out  shirts  'faultless  linen,'  my  haggard  face  that  of  a 
'Spanish-looking  exquisite,'  my  habitual  quiet  and  'used  up' 
way,  'gentle  and  eloquent  languor.'  But  you  will  be  a  little 
astonished  to  know  that  the  hall  I  spoke  in  was  worse  than 
Springfield,  and  notoriously  so — that  the  people  seemed  gen 
uinely  pleased,  that  the  lecture  inaugurated  the  'Star'  course 
very  handsomely,  and  that  it  was  the  first  of  the  first  series 
of  lectures  ever  delivered  in  St.  Louis." 

Later  his  letters  home  speak  more  openly  of  his  cares,  and 
he  tells  his  wife  of  his  growing  financial  difficulties.  He  was 
well  paid  for  his  work,  and  he  had  the  seeming  advantage  of 
beginning  his  Eastern  career  with  great  prestige;  but  that 
favorable  breeze  of  fame  was  probably  his  undoing.  His  ob 
ligations  to  his  friends  could  hardly  have  been  greater  than 


BRET  HARTE  345 

Hawthorne's,  but  the  author  of  The  Scarlet  Letter  escaped 
criticism  by  the  very  apparent  seriousness  of  his  life,  and  by 
his  honorable  discharge  of  his  debts.  Bret  Harte  invited  com 
ment  of  the  undesirable  kind  by  assuming  that  he  could  not 
miss  success.  His  friends  claim  that  he  finally  paid  his  debts; 
so  John  Hay  assured  Joaquin  Miller.  "Hay  assured  me  that 
he  did  not  owe  one  dollar  in  New  York;  that  he  was  a  man  of 
singularly  strict  sense  of  honor  in  money  matters;  that  he  had 
once  offered  to  assist  him  when  ill  in  Washington,  but  that 
Bret  Harte  had  seemed  so  hurt  at  the  idea  that  he  was  sorry 
he  had  tried  to  help  him." 

"I  may  mention,"  Joaquin  Miller  continues,  "that  after  I 
had  the  letter  from  Hay  I  advertised  here  in  St.  Louis  for  any 
and  all  bills  against  Bret  Harte,  promising  to  pay  in  full  with 
out  regard  to  the  statute  of  limitations.  Only  one  man,  a 
printer,  put  in  any  sort  of  a  claim,  and  this  one  man's  own 
statement  was  to  the  effect  that  Bret  Harte  paid  most  of  the 
bill,  claiming  that  was  all  he  had  agreed  to  pay." 

It  is  Bret  Harte' s  misfortune  that  the  circumstances  of  this 
period  of  his  life,  whatever  they  were,  have  passed  into  an  un 
pleasant  tradition.  He  is  still  thought  of  as  improvident  and 
to  a  certain  extent  indolent.  This  last  impression  of  him  has 
its  real  ground,  however,  in  his  record  abroad.  In  1878  he 
accepted  a  government  post,  as  Hawthorne  had  done,  and 
leaving  his  family  at  Sea  Cliff,  he  sailed  for  England,  and 
thence  journeyed  to  Crefeld,  Prussia,  where  he  was  to  be 
Consul.  He  never  returned  to  America;  so  far  as  American 
literature  is  concerned,  his  departure  was  the  end  of  his  career. 


Hawthorne  became  in  time  weary  of  all  official  duties,  but 
Bret  Harte  was  weary  of  his  when  he  began.  He  felt  his  ap 
pointment  as  a  kind  of  exile,  and  the  necessity  of  leaving  his 
family  behind  made  the  beginning  of  his  work  as  inauspi- 


346  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

cious  as  possible.  His  first  letter  to  his  wife  from  Crefeld, 
July  17,  1878,  sets  the  tone  of  too  many  of  his  days  abroad. 

"  I  left  London  Friday  morning  and  reached  Paris  the  same 
night,  intending  to  come  here  the  next  day,  but  I  found  my 
self  so  worn  out  that  I  lingered  at  Paris  until  last  night — three 
days.  ...  I  have  audaciously  travelled  alone  nearly  four 
hundred  miles,  through  an  utterly  foreign  country,  on  one  or 
two  little  French  and  German  phrases,  and  a  very  small  stock 
of  assurance,  and  have  delivered  my  letters  to  my  predeces 
sor,  and  shall  take  possession  of  the  Consulate  to-morrow. 

Mr. ,  the  present  incumbent,  appears  to  me — I  do  not 

know  how  far  I  shall  alter  my  impression  hereafter — as  a  very 
narrow,  mean,  ill-bred,  and  not  over-bright  Puritanical  Ger 
man.  It  was  my  intention  to  appoint  him  my  Vice-Consul — 
an  act  of  courtesy  suggested  both  by  my  own  sense  of  right  and 
Mr.  Lenard's  advice,  but  he  does  not  seem  to  deserve  it,  and 
has  even  received  my  suggestion  of  it  with  the  suspicion  of  a 
mean  nature.  But  at  present  I  fear  I  may  have  to  do  it,  for 
I  know  no  one  else  here — I  am  to  all  appearance  utterly 
friendless;  I  have  not  received  the  first  act  of  kindness  or 
courtesy  from  any  one,  and  I  suppose  this  man  sees  it.  I 
shall  go  to  Bavaria  to-morrow  to  see  the  Consul  there,  who 
held  this  place  as  one  of  his  dependencies,  and  under  whose 
direction was,  and  try  to  make  matters  straight. 

"It's  been  up-hill  work  ever  since  I  left  New  York,  but  I 
shall  try  to  see  it  through,  please  God!  I  don't  allow  myself 
to  think  over  it  at  all,  or  I  should  go  crazy.  I  shut  my  eyes  to 
it,  and  in  doing  so  perhaps  I  shut  out  what  is  often  so  pleasant 
to  a  traveller's  first  impression,  but  thus  far  London  has  only 
seemed  to  me  a  sluggish  nightmare  through  which  I  have 
waked,  and  Paris  a  confused  sort  of  hysterical  experience.  I 
had  hoped  for  a  little  kindness  and  rest  here.  Perhaps  it  may 
come.  To-day  I  found  here  (forwarded  from  London)  a  kind 
little  response  to  my  card  from  Froude,  who  invites  me  to 
come  to  his  country-place — an  old  seaport  village  in  Devon 
shire.  If  everything  had  gone  well  here — if  I  can  make  it  go 
well  here — I  shall  go  back  to  London  and  Paris  for  a  vacation 
of  a  few  weeks,  and  see  Froude  at  least. 

"  At  least,  Nan,  be  sure  I've  written  now  the  worst;  I  think 


BRET  HARTE  347 

things  must  be  better  soon.  I  shall,  please  God,  make  some 
friends  in  good  time,  and  will  try  and  be  patient.  But  I  shall 
not  think  of  sending  for  you  until  I  see  clearly  that  I  can  stay 
myself.  If  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst  I  shall  try  to  stand 
it  for  a  year,  and  save  enough  to  come  home  and  begin  again 
there.  But  I  could  not  stand  it  to  see  you  break  your  heart 
here  through  disappointment,  as  I  mayhap  may  do." 

In  a  few  days  Harte  took  a  more  cheerful  view  of  his  pros 
pects,  especially  after  he  had  seen  his  own  works  in  transla 
tion  displayed  for  sale  in  a  shop-window — a  pleasant  omen 
that  his  genius,  if  not  himself,  had  found  welcome.  But  this 
first  letter  is  perhaps  significant  in  its  hopelessness,  its  lack  of 
energy,  its  implied  assumption  that  the  world  owed  Bret 
Harte  a  living,  and  the  little  German  town  in  particular  owed 
him  personal  friendship, — and  that  within  twenty-four  hours 
of  his  arrival.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  hospitable  friendship  came 
his  way  just  after  the  despondent  letter  was  written.  But  he 
had  already  been  made  welcome  to  England,  on  that  brief 
passage  which  he  refers  to  as  "a  sluggish  nightmare,"  and 
with  all  allowance  for  his  discouraged  state  of  mind,  one  is 
puzzled  by  his  querulousness,  and  his  readiness  to  arrange  at 
once  for  a  "vacation  of  a  few  weeks." 

Whatever  impression  the  Old  World  made  on  him,  the  rec 
ord  of  his  English  days  is  pleasantly  set  down  by  his  friends. 
Joaquin  Miller  was  at  hand  to  greet  him  on  that  first  visit, 
when  "on  his  way  to  the  Consulate  at  Crefeld,  up  the  Rhine, 
a  piteously  small  place  for  such  a  large  man.  He  had  a  French 
dictionary  in  one  pocket,  he  told  me,  half  laughing,  and  a 
German  dictionary  in  the  other.  London  wanted  to  see  him, 
of  course,  and  although  'the  season'  was  over,  all  the  literary 
men  and  women  gathered  about,  and  were  simply  charmed  by 
his  warm-hearted  and  perfect  ways.  'George  Eliot'  asked 
after  John  Hay,  and  told  Bret  Harte  that  one  of  his  poems  was 
the  finest  thing  in  our  language. 


348  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

"He  could  not  rest  until  he  stood  by  the  grave  of  Dickens. 
But  I  drove  him  here  and  I  drove  him  there  to  see  the  living. 
The  dead  would  keep.  But  at  last,  one  twilight,  I  led  him  by 
the  hand  to  where  some  plain  letters,  in  a  broad,  flat  stone, 
just  below  the  bust  of  Thackeray,  read  'Charles  Dickens.'  " 

Joaquin  Miller  may  well  have  been  prejudiced  in  favor  of 
his  old  friend  in  a  strange  land.  But  the  English  themselves 
accepted  his  works  and  himself  with  a  generosity  not  usually 
accorded  to  American  writers,  so  that  Harte  had  small  reason 
to  think  or  speak  slightingly  of  his  stay  among  them.  Of 
course  the  depression  natural  in  that  first  letter  home  must  not 
be  taken  too  seriously.  It  is,  however,  all  the  more  interest 
ing  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  English  gave  him  as  kind  a 
greeting  as  he  ever  had  from  his  own  people,  and  to  this  day 
their  memories  of  him  are  pleasanter  on  the  whole  than  his 
countrymen's.  The  point  is  worth  illustrating  at  some  length, 
as  an  instance  perhaps  of  the  Puritan  bias  in  American  popu 
lar  criticism,  which  rejects  Poe  and  in  a  measure  Bret  Harte 
for  faults  of  character,  though  their  work  is  too  high  in  quality 
to  escape  even  Puritan  praise.  The  English  attitude  toward 
both  men  has  been  more  generous,  or  the  ocean  interval  has 
given  them  a  truer  perspective.  Justin  McCarthy,  in  his 
Reminiscences,  describes  Bret  Harte  as  he  knew  him,  and  the 
whole  passage  deserves  quotation. 

"I  had  never  heard  of  the  author  who  has  since  become  so 
famous,  when  I  read  one  day  his  marvellous  little  poem, 
'  Jim.'  As  well  as  I  remember,  the  poem  was  not  even  signed 
with  his  name,  or  if  it  was,  the  name  did  not  convey  to  my 
mind  any  manner  of  idea.  But  when  I  read  the  little  poem — 
that  wonderfully  dramatic  story  inspired  by  all  the  soul  of 
feeling,  full  of  humor,  of  fire,  of  pathos — I  felt  certain  that  a 
new  poetic  force  had  arisen  in  the  English  language.  !  I  met 
Bret  Harte  in  San  Francisco,  and  I  met  him  afterward'in  New 
York.  He  was  then  a  very  young  man — it  was  years  ago,  '  I 
must  not  say  how  many,  but  a  great  many,'  to  alter  slightly  a 


BRET  HARTE  349 

line  in  Edgar  Allan  Poe's  poem.  When  I  went  back  to  resume 
my  life  in  England,  I  found  that  the  literary  world  had  al 
ready  discovered  Bret  Harte,  and  that  he  was  welcomed  into 
a  secure  fame.  I  well  remember  that  my  old  friend  Tom 
Hood,  who  is  long  since  dead,  wrote  to  tell  me  that  he  was 
preparing  an  article  on  the  new  American  poet,  and  to  ask  me 
whether  I  knew  if  Bret  Harte  was  really  the  young  poet's 
name,  or  was  only  what  French  people  never  do  call  a  'nom 
de  plume.' 

"  Since  that  time  Mr.  Bret  Harte  has  established  himself  in 
this  island,  first  (as  American  Consul)  in  Glasgow,  and  after 
wards  in  London,  where  he  has  now  (1899)  been  settled  for 
many  years.  No  one  is  made  more  cordially  welcome  in  liter 
ary  society,  and,  indeed,  in  society  of  any  kind  which  he 
chooses  to  favor  with  his  presence.  I  have  met  him  at  all 
sorts  of  gatherings — Bohemian  and  Belgravian — and  no  one 
can  meet  him  without  being  the  happier  for  the  meeting.  He  is 
one  of  the  few  Americans  who  have  no  especial  gift  of  speech- 
making,  and  he  is  not  a  great  talker — at  all  events,  he  cer 
tainly  makes  no  effort  to  shine  in  conversation,  although  it  is 
not  possible  to  converse  with  him  for  many  minutes  without 
discovering,  if  one  did  not  know  it  before,  that  he  is  convers 
ing  with  a  man  of  original  mind,  of  that  keenest  observation 
which  is  keen  because  it  is  poetic,  and  of  a  humor  still  as 
fresh  as  it  was  when  it  first  created  for  European  readers  the 
life  of  the  canvas  town  and  of  Poker  Flat.  There  is  one  house 
in  London  which,  somehow,  I  especially  associate  with  recol 
lections  of  Bret  Harte.  Of  course  he  is  to  be  met  with  in 
numbers  of  London  houses;  but  at  this  particular  house  of 
which  I  am  now  thinking,  one  had  a  chance  of  meeting  him 
in  a  small  congenial  company,  and  of  talking  with  him  and 
of  hearing  him  talk.  I  am  speaking  of  the  house  which  has 
for  its  gifted  and  charming  hostess  my  friend  Mrs.  Henniker, 
the  accomplished  sister  of  Lord  Crewe,  and  daughter  of 
Monckton  Milnes,  the  poet,  scholar,  and  politician,  after 
wards  Lord  Houghton.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Henniker's  is  just  the 
house  where  one  who  knows  his  way  about  London  would 
naturally  expect  to  meet  Bret  Harte;  and  I  have  been  happy 
enough  to  get  the  chance  every  now  and  then  of  meeting  him 
there.  The  ' snowfall  of  time5  has  been  showing  itself  very 


350  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

much  on  Bret  Harte's  head  of  late;  but  it  is  a  premature  snow- 
fall;  for  he  was  a  handsome  young  fellow  when  I  first  saw 
him  in  California,  and  I  know  the  number  of  years  since  that 
time  far  too  exactly  to  allow  me  to  believe  that  Bret  Harte  has 
yet  grown  old." 

So  much  for  Harte's  fame  in  England.  He  became  known 
there  not  only  through  his  visits,  "  vacations  of  a  few  weeks," 
to  Froude  and  others,  but  through  the  public  lecturing  he 
shortly  undertook  in  1879.  The  Argonauts  of  '49  was  the 
lecture  offered,  and  the  English  hailed  it  with  their  traditional 
appreciation  of  the  unusual  in  American  writing.  In  the  uni 
versal  applause  Harte  might  well  have  thought  his  invasion  of 
England  as  fortunate  as  Artemus  Ward's.  Financially,  how 
ever,  the  tour  was  not  successful,  and  he  returned  to  Crefeld 
in  low  spirits,  having  cleared,  as  he  wrote  his  wife,  only  two 
hundred  dollars.  A  second  tour,  better  managed,  brought 
him  more  money,  and  perhaps  more  enjoyment.  It  seems  to 
have  been  harder  each  time  to  return  to  Crefeld,  where  there 
was  little  to  interest  him.  His  friends  at  home  and  abroad 
probably  used  their  influence;  in  1880  he  was  removed  from 
Germany  to  the  Consulate  of  Glasgow — a  change  immediately 
productive  of  greater  cheerfulness  when  his  inquisitive  Scotch 
landlady  looked  over  his  luggage  and  sternly  asked  where 
was  his  Bible. 

His  incumbency  of  this  office  was  notable  for  the  increased 
amount  of  writing  he  did  in  it,  beginning  with  the  story  Found 
at  Blazing  Star.  So  busy  was  he  with  his  friendships,  his 
"  vacations  of  a  few  weeks,"  and  his  literary  work,  that  as  one 
of  his  best  friends  said,  the  only  place  he  was  sure  not  to  be 
found  in  was  the  Glasgow  Consulate.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  large  number  of  stories  from  his  pen  which  appeared 
in  American  magazines  at  this  time  gave  his  government 
the  impression  that  he  was  neglecting  his  duties.  Doubt 
less  the  government  had  better  evidence  than  that,  and  in 


BRET  HARTE  351 

1885  he  was  removed.  For  the  rest  of  his  life  he  lived  in 
London. 

His  English  friends,  besides  Froude  and  William  Black, 
the  novelist,  were  many.  The  letters  which  have  been  pub 
lished  show  Bret  Harte  at  his  best,  and  give  at  least  an  indica 
tion  of  the  personal  charm  which,  for  those  who  knew  him, 
seems  to  have  made  up  for  substantial  achievement.  He 
wrote  much  and  planned  much  more;  he  especially  desired 
to  make  a  place  for  himself  in  the  drama,  in  both  serious 
plays  and  comic  operas;  one  libretto  he  submitted  to  his 
friend  Sir  Arthur  Sullivan.  But  the  play  he  had  written  for 
Stuart  Robson,  Two  Men  of  Sandy  Bar,  had  been  a  failure, 
the  comic  operas  never  reached  the  stage,  and  none  of  the 
plays  he  himself  wrote  had  any  success.  To  this  day,  how 
ever,  his  stories  furnish  more  skilful  dramatists  with  plots. 

In  1902  it  was  evident  to  his  friends  that  Bret  Harte' s  health 
was  failing.  For  several  summers  he  had  enjoyed  the  Surrey 
landscape  and  air,  and  he  now  visited  Camberley,  at  the  home 
of  his  friend,  Madame  Van  de  Velde,  in  the  hope  of  recuperat 
ing.  His  condition  did  not  improve,  nor  did  it  grow  alarming, 
until  May  5,  1902.  On  that  day  he  suffered  two  severe  at 
tacks  of  hemorrhage,  and  toward  evening  he  died.  He  was 
buried  in  Frimley  churchyard,  in  the  presence  of  his  family 
and  a  few  friends. 

IV 

Bret  Harte's  prose  work  naturally  divides  into  three  chrono 
logical  groups — the  stories  written  in  California,  those  written 
in  New  York,  and  those  written  abroad.  Of  the  first  group, 
however,  there  is  a  great  difference  between  Harte's  earliest 
works  and  the  stories  that  began  with  the  Luck  of  Roaring 
Camp;  and  in  the  second  and  first  group  there  is,  in  the 
opinion  of  most  critics,  a  wide  gulf  between  the  pieces  that 
follow  his  true  Californian  inspiration  and  those  that  try  to 


352  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

break  new  ground.  So,  in  spite  of  the  chronology,  the  lover  of 
Bret  Harte's  prose  thinks  of  the  California  tales  as  the  dis 
tinctive  part,  preceded  by  some  experimental  sketches,  and 
followed — even  sometimes  interrupted — by  unfortunate  ex 
cursions  into  regions  not  subject  to  his  genius. 

The  preliminary  sketches,  which  are  now  entirely  negligible 
S  except  for  purposes  of  criticism,  are  obviously  and  con 
fessedly  in  the  manner  of  Dickens.  The  great  story-teller  was 
Harte's  master  from  the  first.  Though  their  gifts  were  es 
sentially  different,  it  is  easy  to  see  their  points  of  contact,  and 
something  of  the  Dickens  strain  was  in  the  younger  man's 
work  to  the  last.  His  verses  on  the  death  of  his  master, 
Dickens  in  Camp,  show  what  he  thought  he  admired  in  the 
Englishman's  genius;  it  is  little  Nell  that  he  praises,  wander 
ing  and  lost  on  English  meadows — the  sentimental  Dickens. 
Such  admiration  is  probably  typical  of  young  people,  and  the 
fact  that  Harte  kept  it  till  1870  proves  the  claim  of  eternal 
youth  that  his  friends  made  for  him.  But  sentimentality  was 
not  the  strength  of  Dickens,  nor  of  Bret  Harte.  Humor  of  a 
greater  variety,  a  faculty  for  minute  observation  and  realism, 
/  and  a  sense  of  what  Stevenson  called  the  poetry  of  circum 
stance — these  are  the  common  bonds  between  the  two  writers. 

Great  as  are  Bret  Harte's  gifts  as  a  humorist,  perhaps  his 
twofold  vein  of  romance  and  realism  is  his  distinction.  He 
had  an  extraordinary  power  of  observation  and  a  perfect 
memory;  sentences  spoken  long  before  came  to  his  lips  with 
the  very  intonation  of  the  first  utterance;  his  command  of  de 
tail  amounted  to  mimicry.  Here  he  resembled  Dickens,  and 
like  him  also  he  impressed  people,  for  this  reason,  as  being  by 
natural  endowment  an  actor.  It  is  thus  that  Watts-Dunton 
remembered  him. 

"Bret  Harte,"  he  says,  "had  read  somewhere  about  the 
London  music-halls,  and  proposed  that  we  should  all  three 
take  a  drive  round  the  town  and  see  something  of  them. 


BRET  HARTE  353 

At  that  time  these  places  took  a  very  different  position  in 
public  estimation  from  what  they  appear  to  be  doing  now. 
People  then  considered  them  to  be  very  cockney,  very  vul 
gar,  and  very  inane,  as,  indeed,  they  were,  and  were  shy 
about  going  to  them.  I  hope  they  have  improved  now,  for 
they  seem  to  have  become  quite  fashionable.  Our  first  visit 
was  to  the  Holborn  Music  Hall,  and  there  we  heard  one 
or  two  songs  that  gave  the  audience  immense  delight — some 
comic,  some  more  comic  from  being  sentimental — maudlin. 
And  we  saw  one  or  two  shapeless  women  in  tights.  Then  we 
went  to  the  Oxford,  and  saw  something  on  exactly  the  same 
lines.  In  fact,  the  performers  seemed  to  be  the  same  as  those 
we  had  just  been  seeing.  Then  we  went  to  other  places  of  the 
same  kind,  and  Bret  Harte  agreed  with  me  as  to  the  distress 
ing  emptiness  of  what  my  fellow-countrymen  and  women 
seemed  to  be  finding  so  amusing.  At  that  time,  indeed,  the 
almost  only  interesting  entertainment  outside  the  opera  and 
the  theaters  was  that  at  Evan's  supper-rooms,  where,  under 
the  auspices  of  the  famous  Paddy  Green,  one  could  enjoy  a 
Welsh  rarebit  while  listening  to  the  '  Chough  and  Crow '  and 
'  The  Men  of  Harlech,'  given  admirably  by  choir-boys.  Years 
passed  before  I  saw  Bret  Harte  again.  I  met  him  at  a  little 
breakfast  party,  and  he  amused  those  who  sat  near  him  by 
giving  an  account  of  what  he  had  seen  at  the  music-halls — an 
account  so  graphic  that  I  think  a  fine  actor  was  lost  in  him. 
He  not  only  vivified  every  incident,  but  gave  verbal  descrip 
tions  of  every  performer  in  a  peculiarly  quiet  way  that  added 
immensely  to  the  humor  of  it.  His  style  of  acting  would  have 
been  that  of  Jefferson  of '  Rip  Van  Winkle '  fame.  This  proved 
to  me  what  a  genius  he  had  for  accurate  observation,  and 
also  what  a  remarkable  memory  for  the  details  of  a  scene." 

It  is  easy  to  recognize  this  gift  in  individual  stories;  in  a 
more  general  way  Watts-Dunton's  anecdote  explains  Bret 
Harte's  literary  method, — explains  how  he  could  write  with 
such  fresh,  convincing  power  of  his  California  experiences 
years  after  they  occurred.  But  with  such  a  talent  he  might 
have  been  expected  to  observe  closely  in  other  regions  of  life, 
and  store  up  new  experiences  with  the  same  relish.  His 


354  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

failure  to  do  so  leads  us  to  consider  the  other  side  of  his  genius, 
his  sense  of  romance,  the  poetry  of  incident.  In  his  delight 
ful  essay  Stevenson  reminds  us  that  certain  places  and  scenes 
inevitably  suggest  certain  incidents  as  the  proper  drama  for 
the  setting.  Who  of  us  has  not  felt  the  tragic  romance  of  the 
scene  in  Bleak  House,  or  the  comedy  of  scene  in  Pickwick 
Papers?  The  dark  alleys,  gloomy  woods,  and  midnight  hours 
that  Dickens  so  gloriously  refurbishes  out  of  the  honored 
storehouse  of  melodrama,  and  fits  them  out  with  their  ap 
propriate  incidents;  the  innumerable  quaint  English  inns, 
whose  cozy  fires  suggest  toasted  cheese  and  the  kettle  on  the 
hob,  and  pleasant  midnight  conviviality,  and  whose  unac 
countable  twisted  hallways  suggest  late  adventures  on  the 
journey  bedward — out  of  such  scenes  how  naturally  and  con 
vincingly  come  the  great  humorist's  stories !  And  Bret  Harte, 
after  several  false  starts,  developed  one  certain  literary  in 
stinct;  he  learned  what  sort  of  incident  went  inevitably  with 
the  new  Argonautic  scenes,  and  every  reader  knows  at  heart 
that  his  instinct  was  true.  It  has  been  said  in  his  favor 
justly,  that  he  had  to  find  a  new  kind  of  character  and  inci 
dent  to  fit  an  entirely  new  scene,  and  that  therefore  he  could 
have  no  help  from  earlier  writers.  In  this  respect  he  is  more 
original  than  Dickens,  whose  scenes  and  accompanying  inci 
dents  were  far  from  new  in  the  English  novel.  But  Bret 
Harte  never  learned  to  find  the  true  incident  for  any  other 
scene.  He  mastered  the  single  formula  and  used  it  perfectly. 
One  is  inclined  to  wish  he  had  been  content  with  it.  It  was 
Harte's  originality  and  his  realism  that  impressed  Dickens;  as 
.  Forster  tells  in  his  Life,  he  found  in  The  Luck  oj  Roaring  Camp 
and  The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat  "such  subtle  strokes  of  char 
acter  as  he  had  not  anywhere  else  in  late  years  discovered; 
the  manner  resembling  himself,  but  the  matter  fresh  to  a  de 
gree  that  surprised  him;  the  painting  in  all  respects  masterly, 
and  the  wild  rude  thing  painted  a  quite  wonderful  reality." 


BRET  HARTE  355 

An  important  resemblance  between  Dickens  and  Bret 
Harte  has  been  found  in  their  optimism,  their  humanitarian 
hope  and  belief  in  the  best  of  life.  It  is  a  fair  question  whether 
a  trait  so  broadly  characteristic  of  their  times  can  be  limited 
to  a  mere  resemblance  between  two  men.  And  in  their  hu- 
manitarianism  there  is  one  marked  divergence.  Dickens  puts 
himself  into  the  position  of  his  characters,  taking  upon  him 
for  the  moment  their  fortunes  and  personalities,  and  making 
the  reader  follow  him.  Bret  Harte  feels  no  such  Virgilian 
sympathy;  he  interests  the  reader  in  the  characters,  but  as  a 
dramatist,  not  as  an  advocate.  The  sorrow  of  life  in  the  Cali 
fornia  world  is  great.  Death  in  many  forms,  accidents  and 
bereavements,  make  up  the  greater  part  of  Harte's  pictures. 
But  he  cares  little  for  the  sorrow  in  itself;  he  is  not  disturbed 
by  it,  as  Dickens  is;  rather  he  accepts  it  with  a  kind  of  satis 
faction,  as  Homer  did,  as  the  authentic  mark  of  all  human 
experience.  The  effect  in  his  work  is  far  from  severe  or  un 
feeling,  and  in  the  end  he  enlists  the  sympathy  of  many  people 
whom  Dickens  could  never  reach.  But  you  cannot  imagine 
Bret  Harte  attempting  to  better  the  social  conditions  of  the 
gold  camps.  His  appreciation  of  them  for  the  purposes  of  art 
is  too  great  for  him  to  desire  a  reform  that  would  destroy  their 
quality. 

In  his  earliest  work  we  can  see  Bret  Harte  feeling  his  way 
toward  realism,  toward  the  romance  of  scene  and  incident, 
and  toward  his  humanitarian  point  of  view.  Mliss  is  a  fair 
example  of  that  earlier  style.  It  has  a  romantic  heroine,  with 
a  disreputable  father;  there  is  an  abandoned  mine  that  later 
turns  out  to  be  rich;  there  are  villains  and  hairbreadth  escapes. 
Little,  however,  is  made  of  the  scene  itself,  or  of  the  characters 
peculiar  to  it.  The  inspiration  of  the  story  is  literary.  That  a 
child  of  uncertain  parents  should  be  left  an  orphan  and  turn 
out  to  be  an  heiress,  is  no  new  thing  in  fiction. 

The  influence  of  Dickens  is  most  clear  in  the  short  sketch 


356  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

called  High-Water  Mark.  The  scene  that  suggests  the  tale 
is  tragic,  and  is  described  at  length,  Dickens-fashion,  to  pre 
pare  the  reader's  curiosity.  Under  the  stilted,  imitated  rhet 
oric  it  is  not  difficult  to  recognize  Harte's  faculty  of  close  ob 
servation,  but  he  had  not  yet  found  his  idiom. 

"The  vocal  expression  of  the  Dedlow  Marsh  was  also  mel 
ancholy  and  depressing.    The  sepulchral  boom  of  the  bittern, 
the  shriek  of  the  curlew,  the  scream  of  passing  brant,  the 
wrangling  of  quarrelsome  teal,  the  sharp  querulous  protest  of 
the  startled  crane,  and  syllabled  complaint  of  the  'Kildeer' 
plover  were  beyond  the  power  of  written  expression.    Nor  was 
the  aspect  of  these  mournful  fowls  at  all  cheerful  and  inspir 
ing.    Certainly  not  the  blue  heron,  standing  midieg  deep  in 
the  water,  obviously  catching  cold  in  a  reckless  disregard  of 
wet  feet  and  consequences;  nor  the  mournful  curlew,  the  de 
jected  plover,  or  the  low-spirited  snipe,  who  saw  fit  to  join  him 
in  his  suicidal  contemplation;  nor  the  impassive  kingfisher — 
an  ornithological  Marius — reviewing  the  desolate  expanse; 
nor  the  black  raven  that  went  to  and  fro  over  the  face  of  the 
marsh  continually,  but  evidently  couldn't  make  up  his  mind 
whether  the  waters  had  subsided,  and  felt  low-spirited  in  the 
reflection  that  after  all  this  trouble  he  wouldn't  be  able  to  give 
a  definite  answer.    On  the  contrary,  it  was  evident  at  a  glance 
that  the  dreary  expanse  of  Dedlow  Marsh  told  unpleasantly 
on  the  birds,  and  that  the  season  of  migration  was  looked  for 
ward  to  with  a  feeling  of  relief  and  satisfaction  by  the  full- 
grown,  and  of  extravagant  anticipation  by  the  callow  brood. 
But  if  Dedlow  Marsh  was  cheerless  at  the  slack  of  the  low  tide, 
you  should  have  seen  it  when  the  tide  was  strong  and  full. 
When  the  damp  air  blew  chilly  over  the  cold  glittering  ex 
panse,  and  came  to  the  faces  of  those  who  looked  seaward  like 
another  tide;  when  a  steel-like  glint  marked  the  low  hollows 
and  the  sinuous  line  of  slough ;  when  the  great  shell-incrusted 
trunks  of  fallen  trees  arose  again,  and  went  forth  on  their 
dreary  purposeless  wanderings,  drifting  hither  and  thither,  but 
getting  no  farther  toward  any  goal  at  the  falling  tide  or  the 
day's  decline  than  the  cursed  Hebrew  in  the  legend;  when  the 
glossy  ducks  swung  silently,  making  neither  ripple  nor  furrow 


BRET  HARTE  357 

on  the  shimmering  surface;  when  the  fog  came  in  with  the  tide 
and  shut  out  the  blue  above,  even  as  the  green  below  had  been 
obliterated ;  when  boatmen,  lost  in  that  fog,  paddling  about  in 
a  hopeless  way,  started  at  what  seemed  the  brushing  of  mer 
men's  ringers  on  the  boat's  keel,  or  shrank  from  the  tufts  of 
grass  spreading  around  like  the  floating  hair  of  a  corpse,  and 
knew  by  these  signs  that  they  were  lost  upon  Dedlow  Marsh, 
and  must  make  a  night  of  it,  and  a  gloomy  one  at  that, — then 
you  might  know  something  of  Dedlow  Marsh  at  high  water." 

With  such  a  beginning  as  this — a  scene  calling  surely  for 
tragic  circumstance,  some  permanent  horror,  Bret  Harte 
tells  a  mild  story  of  a  woman  washed  away  with  her  infant 
child  in  a  high  flood,  and  safely  stranded  at  low  tide  on  Ded 
low  Marsh,  where  Indians  find  her  and  restore  her  to  her  hus 
band.  The  scene  was  well  set,  but  it  goes  unused;  Harte  had 
not  yet  learned  to  find  the  proper  incidents  for  a  romantic 
situation.  In  the  conclusion  he  is  conscious  himself  that  the 
horror  of  the  Marsh  has  not  been  caught  in  the  story,  and  his 
last  words  are  meant  for  additional  assurance  that  in  spite  of 
the  tale,  the  Marsh  really  is  grewsome:  "Not  much,  perhaps, 
considering  the  malevolent  capacity  of  the  Dedlow  Marsh. 
But  you  must  tramp  over  it  at  low  water,  or  paddle  over  it  at 
high  tide,  or  get  lost  upon  it  once  or  twice  in  the  fog,  as  I  have, 
to  understand  properly  Mary's  adventure,  or  to  appreciate 
duly  the  blessings  of  living  beyond  high-water  mark." 

VII 

In  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp  Bret  Harte  came  to  his 
own  simply  because  he  discovered  the  true  possibilities  of  ro 
mantic  incident  in  the  Western  life  he  knew.  From  that  time 
he  wasted  no  thought  on  the  outward  machinery  of  plot — the 
forgotten  mines  that  suddenly  prove  rich,  the  floods  and  ex 
plosions  that  alter  the  fate  of  the  mining  camps;  these  inci 
dents  indeed  occur,  but  in  their  place  and  in  true  proportion. 


358  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

They  no  longer  provide  the  central  material  for  the  plot. 
Bret  Harte  had  discovered  that  the  romance  of  the  coast  was 
not  in  outward  things,  but  in  the  curious  mixture  of  char 
acters  and  races,  brought  together  for  the  moment  into  the 
sudden  whirlpool  of  the  mining  towns,  and  immortalized  in 
his  pages  before  they  had  fused,  or  any  of  their  peculiarities 
were  dimmed.  The  Luck  begins,  not  in  description,  but  in  the 
simple  statement  of  the  incident  which  makes  the  romance  of 
the  story — the  birth  of  a  child  in  the  rude  camp  where  was  no 
other  woman  to  attend  "  Cherokee  Sal."  All  the  poetry  of  in 
cident  that  Stevenson  loved  is  for  this  story  contained  in  three 
sentences — enough  to  give  the  character  of  the  camp,  and  the 
mother,  and  the  startling  incongruity  of  the  event:  "It  was, 
perhaps,  part  of  the  expiation  of  her  sin  that,  at  a  moment 
when  she  most  lacked  her  sex's  intuitive  tenderness  and  care, 
she  met  only  the  half-contemptuous  faces  of  her  masculine 
associates.  Yet  a  few  of  the  spectators  were,  I  think,  touched 
by  her  sufferings.  Sandy  Tipton  thought  it  was  'rough  on 
Sal/  and,  in  the  contemplation  of  her  condition,  for  a  moment 
rose  superior  to  the  fact  that  he  had  an  ace  and  two  bowers  in 
his  sleeve." 

Out  of  this  brief  statement  of  the  situation  grows  every  ele 
ment  in  the  story;  there  is  no  such  waste  of  romantic  oppor 
tunity  as  in  High-Water  Mark.  The  absence  of  female  nurses 
in  the  camp  leads  naturally  to  the  installation  of  "Jimmy," 
the  ass,  and  "Stumpy,"  in  the  maternal  offices, — one  of  the 
broadest  effects  of  humor  in  the  story;  "  'Me  and  that  ass/ 
he  would  say, '  has  been  father  and  mother  to  him ! '  :  The 
character  of  the  men  in  Roaring  Camp  is  plainly  enough  in 
dicated  by  the  extra  cards  up  Sandy  Tipton's  sleeve;  and  the 
regeneration  of  the  camp  through  the  mere  presence  of  the 
child  is  forecast  in  that  first  unusual  sympathy  for  its  mother. 

The  end  of  the  story,  the  destruction  of  the  camp  by  the 
mountain  torrent,  has  been  charged  with  sentimentalism,  and 


BRET  HARTE  359 

its  artistic  truth  questioned  because  it  is  accidental.  Accident 
certainly  plays  a  large  part  in  the  solving  of  Bret  Harte's 
plots, — as  in  The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  and  In  the  Car- 
quinez  Woods;  and  the  use  he  makes  of  such  melodramatic 
devices  is  sentimental.  So  Dickens  solves  many  a  story  by  ac 
cident.  But  Bret  Harte's  world  is  one  in  which  the  unex 
pected  catastrophe  is  the  usual  thing;  in  the  mining  camp  ac 
cident  is  normal.  The  fires,  explosions,  floods  and  all  other 
forms  of  sudden  peril  are  implicit  in  the  wild  gamble  of  the 
Argonauts'  life,  and  we  can  accept  it,  not  as  a  method  of  es 
cape  for  the  embarrassed  author,  but  as  experience  truly  por 
trayed.  And  the  reserve  of  Bret  Harte's  manner  when  he 
records  such  misfortunes — his  impassive  acceptance  of  the 
given  fact  in  his  own  fiction,  is  in  the  very  manner  of  the  sea 
soned  gambler,  who  takes  his  luck  as  it  comes;  and  the  reader 
in  time  learns  to  accept  the  change  of  fortune  in  these  stories 
with  much  the  same  philosophy  as  Mr.  John  Oakhurst,  in 
The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  to  whom  "life  was  at  best  an- 
uncertain  game,  and  he  recognized  the  usual  percentage  in 
favor  of  the  dealer.'7 

Perhaps  it  is  because  Bret  Harte  creates  so  successfully  this 
atmosphere  of  normal  chance,  that  he  can  give  us,  with  little 
change  in  the  facts,  stories  that  actually  happened.  Ten 
nessee's  Partner  is  such  a  transcription  from  life.  It  has  the 
imaginative  power  of  a  fresh  creation;  it  seems  typical  of  the 
life  of  the  men,  in  incident  and  character,  and  the  hero  him 
self  is  one  of  the  most  original  in  our  literature.  It  was  this 
story  that  Clara  Morris  used  to  think  of  when  she  wanted  to 
shed  tears  in  the  play,  and  many  readers  have  found  it  the 
most  touching  of  Bret  Harte's  tales.  The  worthless  Ten 
nessee  is  not  without  virtues;  at  least  he  is  reckless  and  has  a 
sense  of  humor,  and  he  acquires  some  merit  vicariously  from 
the  devotion  of  his  partner.  The  latter  has  no  sense  of  hu 
mor — an  unusual  lack  in  Bret  Harte's  miners;  his  forgiving 


360  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

faithfulness  is  in  constant  danger  of  becoming  maudlin,  but  it 
is  saved  to  our  respect  by  the  unsoftened  contrast  of  the  Part 
ner's  good  intentions  and  his  outward  circumstances  and 
manners — the  donkey  cart,  the  grave-digging,  the  funeral 
speech. 

The  keynote  of  the  Argonaut  life  was  incongruity.  In  that 
one  quality  lay  its  fitness  for  literary  use.  Unlike  the  other 
great  frontiers  recorded  in  books,  the  mining  country  rep 
resented  no  progress  of  ideas,  no  clash  of  civilizations;  it  was 
the  scene  of  a  crusade  without  a  cross,  as  Bret  Harte  says,  an 
exodus  without  a  prophet.  It  produced  no  heroic  material 
such  as  Cooper's  frontier  yielded  him;  the  clash  of  Chinaman 
and  miner,  fatally  undignified,  could  not  be  idealized  to  any 
thing  like  the  literary  proportions  of  the  struggle  between  In 
dian  and  settler. '  It  produced  no  fund  of  mystery,  as  the  In 
dian  or  African  frontier  has  done  in  later  years;  the  interests 
-J  and  the  fortunes  of  the  forty-niners  were  hopelessly  frank. 
But  it  produced,  as  its  very  essence,  unlimited  incongruity, 
from  which  the  romance  of  incident  arose  on  one  hand,  and  the 
humor  of  character  on  the  other.  For  a  background  there  was 
the  Spanish  country,  with  Spanish  names  and  enough  Spanish 
traditions  to  endow  it  with  some  natural  breath  of  old-world 
poetry.  Upon  this  aristocratic  priming  the  gold  boom  laid  hu 
manity  in  all  its  colors,  insanely  mixed.  The  scholar,  the  crim 
inal,  the  poet,  the  Mexican,  the  New  Englander,  the  Virginian, 
were  as  brothers  in  the  camps,  and  individually  none  of  them 
was  without  paradox.  "The  greatest  scamp  had  a  Raphael 
face,  with  a  profusion  of  blonde  hair;  Oakhurst,  a  gambler, 
had  the  melancholy  air  and  intellectual  abstraction  of  a  Ham 
let;  the  coolest  and  most  courageous  man  wis  scarcely  over 
five  feet  in  height,  with  a  soft  voice  and  an  embarrassed,  timid 
manner.  The  term  'roughs'  applied  to  them  was  a  distinc 
tion  rather  than  a  definition.  Perhaps  in  the  minor  details  of 
"fingers,  toes,  ears,  etc.,  the  camp  may  have  been  deficient,  but 


BRET  HARTE  361 

these  slight  omissions  did  not  detract  from  their  aggregate 
force.  The  strongest  man  had  but  three  fingers  on  his  right 
hand;  the  best  shot  had  but  one  eye." 

It  is  part  of  the  same  incongruity  that  the  wild  justice  of  the 
Argonaut  country  was  administered  with  surprising  dignity, 
and  in  the  worst  camps  standards  of  honor  and  morality  at 
times  ran  high.  Never  had  optimistic  romancer  more  effec 
tive  opportunity  to  idealize  his  subject  than  Bret  Harte;  he 
saw  daily  instances  of  generosity  on  the  part  of  reckless  men 
which  would  grace  the  Christian  character  anywhere,  and  he 
teaches  his  reader  to  expect  sudden  discoveries  of  the  god  in 
the  brute,  as  the  ancient  Greek  could  dream  of  coming  upon  a 
spirit  of  loveliness  in  brook  and  tree.  Yet  the  converse  was 
also  true,  and  serves  to  keep  the  picture  in  balance;  the  Ar 
gonaut  was  capable,  in  his  human  moments,  of  markedly 
downward  paradoxes;  a  gambler  contributing  to  a  new  Meth 
odist  church  did  so  because  the  gambling-houses  were  monot 
onously  numerous,  "and  it  's  variety  that 's  wanted  for  a  big 
town." 

In  one  respect  only  is  Bret  Harte  liable  to  the  charge  of 
idealizing  his  characters;  he  gives  them  credit  for  personal 
beauty,  in  phrase  too  sweeping  for  even  the  admiring  reader 
to  credit.  "They  were  singularly  handsome,  to  a  man,"  he 
says.  "Not  solely  in  the  muscular  development  and  antique 
grace  acquired  through  open-air  exercise  and  unrestrained 
freedom  of  limb,  but  often  in  color,  expression,  and  even  soft 
ness  of  outline.  They  were  mainly  young  men,  whose  beards 
were  virgin,  soft,  silken,  and  curling.  They  had  not  always 
time  to  cut  their  hair,  and  this  often  swept  their  shoulders 
with  the  lovelocks  of  Charles  II.  There  were  faces  that  made 
one  think  of  Delaroche's  Saviour."  Some  exaggeration  of 
affectionate  memory  should  surely  be  allowed  for  this  de 
scription,  written  in  after  years  for  an  English  lecture,  for  it  is 
not  surprising  that  the  race  of  adventurers  whose  varied  ante- 


362  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

cedents  and  unfailing  adaptability  won  Bret  Harte's  devo 
tion,  as  they  have  won  the  love  of  young  natures  since,  should 
wear  such  features  in  the  hero-worshiping  eyes  of  youth. 

The  stories  in  which  Bret  Harte's  genius  for  the  effective 
scene  and  the  romantic  contrast  is  exhibited,  are  too  numer 
ous  to  mention;  these  already  noted  are  fair  examples  in  his 
most  typical  field.  But  outside  the  specific  studies  of  the  min 
ing  camp,  his  genius  works  effectively  upon  the  fringe  of  the 
western  society, — he  draws  masterly  portraits  of  that  vaga 
bond  race  who  follow  the  frontier  for  no  reputable  reason  other 
than  personal  freedom.  Salomy  Jane's  Kiss  brings  together 
three  striking  characters  of  this  sort — old  Madison  Clay, 
violent  and  lawless,  but  with  a  passionate  code  of  personal 
honor;  John  Dart,  the  horse-thief,  inspired  to  better  things 
by  the  love  of  Madison's  daughter,  and  Salome  Jane  herself, 
indolent  and  proud,  but  capable  of  untold  depths  of  passion. 
The  scenes  through  which  the  brief  plot  advances  are  pitched 
in  one  high  key  of  romance, — as  when  the  posse  stop  to  let  the 
older  horse-thief  say  farewell  to  his  wife,  and  Salome  surprises 
John  Dart,  doomed  and  handsome,  with  the  kiss  she  would 
have  bestowed  only  on  a  man  about  to  be  hanged;  or  when 
Dart  makes  his  desperate  escape;  or  when  Salome,  in  a  con 
versation  full  of  surprises,  learns  from  her  father  that  the  man 
she  kissed  is  at  large;  or  when  she  meets  Dart  in  the  woods, 
and  after  the  murder,  flees  with  him.  Incidents  and  scene 
here  are  both  highly  melodramatic,  but  the  true  romance  is  in 
the  characters,  to  meet  any  one  of  whom  is  adventure  in  itself. 

VIII 

A  genius  founded  upon  the  possibilities  of  contrast  in  life 
must  inevitably  be  humorous,  and  Bret  Harte's  reputation  is 
largely  that  of  a  humorist.  It  has  been  claimed  for  him  by  an 
admiring  English  critic  that  his  chief  good  fortune  is  to  be  un- 
American  in  his  humor, — and  as  the  critic  could  not  justly 


BRET  HARTE  363 

discover  a  resemblance  to  the  humor  of  any  other  nation,  he 
concludes  that  in  this  respect  Bret  Harte  is  original  and  indi 
vidual.  Doubtless  he  is  so,  but  he  is  one  with  his  countrymen 
in  this  important  respect,  that  his  humor  grows  out  of  an  ex 
ceeding  optimism.  The  contrast  that  with  him  is  cardinal  in 
human  nature  is  the  surprising  presence  of  good  qualities  in 
the  low  and  the  outcast.  The  potential  goodness  of  Roaring 
Camp  or  of  Tennessee's  Partner  would  do  for  one  extreme  of 
this  humor;  at  the  other  we  have  the  delight  of  discovering 
wisdom  in  Yuba  Bill  or  Salome  Jane.  When  Clay  asks  his 
daughter  what  she  will  say  to  her  angry  and  rejected  suitor 
when  he  hears  that  she  kissed  a  condemned  man,  she  answers, 
that  she  will  promise  to  kiss  the  unsuccessful  lover  when  he  is 
on  his  way  to  be  hanged ;  the  humor  of  the  reply  is  less  in  what 
is  said  than  in  the  surprise  that  the  languid  Salome  Jane 
should  say  it.  To  the  Englishman  for  whom  Mark  Twain  in 
his  most  reckless  moments  and  Artemus  Ward  are  the  typical 
American  humorists,  the  analytical,  keen,  restrained  sort  of 
wit  in  which  Bret  Harte  excels  must  seem  unnational.  But 
it  must  be  remembered  that  practically  all  the  elements  in  his 
stories,  even  the  wit,  are  transcripts  from  life;  he  has  given 
illustrations  at  some  length  of  the  commonness  of  what  seems 
in  his  pages  unique.  It  is  not  in  his  stories  that  we  read  of  the 
teamster  who,  when  rebuked  for  swearing  at  his  cattle,  re 
plied  in  astonishment,  ''Why,  Miss,  you  don't  call  that  swear 
ing,  do  you  ?  Why,  you  ought  to  hear  Bill  Jones  exhort  the 
impenitent  mule!" 

To  exaggerate,  to  overstate,  is,  in  English  thought,  the 
method  of  American  humor.  To  understate,  however,  to 
surprise  by  the  inadequacy  of  the  rhetoric,  is  as  common  to 
certain  types  of  the  Yankee  mind — and  surely  as  common  in 
Bret  Harte's  pages — as  in  the  cockney  jokes  in  Punch.  If 
Harte  and  the  Connecticut  Yankees  are  not  learning  their 
style  of  humor  from  the  great  English  comic  weekly,  as  the  lat- 


364  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

ter  probably  are  not,  then  these  Western  stories  may  be  taken 
as  the  documents  for  a  hitherto  unexpressed  type  of  American 
humor — a  universal  type,  because  rising  from  human  nature. 
Bret  Harte's  humor,  far  from  retarding  the  development  of 
his  stories,  gives  them  often  their  speed,  as  the  same  quality 
in  the  best  of  Mark  Twain's  humor — say,  The  Man  That 
Corrupted  Hadleyburg,  gives  speed  to  his  stories,  by  contrast 
ing  the  situations  and  the  characters  without  further  analysis. 
What  could  be  more  concise,  saying  much  in  little,  than  the 
opening  of  Mr.  Thompson's  Prodigal? 

"  We  all  knew  that  Mr.  Thompson  was  looking  for  his  son, 
and  a  pretty  bad  one  at  that.  That  he  was  coming  to  Califor 
nia  for  this  sole  object  was  no  secret  to  his  fellow-passengers ; 
and  the  physical  peculiarities  as  well  as  the  moral  weaknesses 
of  the  missing  prodigal  were  made  equally  plain  to  us  through 
the  frank  volubility  of  the  parent.  '  You  was  speaking  of  a 
young  man  which  was  hung  at  Red  Dog  for  sluice-robbing/ 
said  Mr.  Thompson  to  a  steerage  passenger  one  day;  'be  you 
aware  of  the  color  of  his  eyes?'  ' Black,'  responded  the  pas 
senger.  '  Ah ! '  said  Mr.  Thompson,  referring  to  some  mental 
memoranda,  'Charles's  eyes  was  blue.'  " 

In  one  respect  not  often  noticed  Bret  Harte's  humor  is 
bound  up  with  the  best  of  his  genius.  He  had  a  gift  for 
parody  which  involved  technical  skill  and  appreciation  of  the 
very  highest  order.  Perhaps  only  Calverley  and  Swinburne 
in  the  nineteenth  century  were  better  parodists  of  this  kind. 
i  Harte  seemed  able  to  take  on  the  very  nature  of  the  man  he 
I/ was  imitating,  no  matter  to  what  purpose  he  was  putting  the 
assumed  gift.  As  has  been  said,  he  particularly  enjoyed  his 
own  wonderfully  accurate  use  of  Swinburne's  measure  in  The 
Heathen  Chinee.  Only  an  artist  as  clever  as  himself  could 
realize  all  the  pleasure  he  had  in  writing  the  Condensed 
Novels,  those  extraordinary  parodies  of  many  authors,  done 
with  unfaltering  skill  at  various  periods  of  his  life.  The  best; 


BRET  HARTE  365 

known  of  these  humorous  and  subtle  criticisms  on  his  brethren 
in  the  craft  is  the  following  scene  in  Cooper's  style : 

"Genevra  had  not  proceeded  many  miles  before  a  weari 
ness  seized  upon  her  fragile  limbs,  and  she  would  fain  seat 
herself  upon  the  trunk  of  a  prostrate  pine,  which  she  previ 
ously  dusted  with  her  handkerchief.  The  sun  was  just  sink 
ing  below  the  horizon,  and  the  scene  was  one  of  gorgeous  and 
sylvan  beauty.  'How  beautiful  is  nature!'  murmured  the 
innocent  girl,  as,  reclining  gracefully  against  the  foot  of  the 
tree,  she  gathered  up  her  skirts  and  tied  a  handkerchief 
around  her  throat.  But  a  low  growl  interrupted  her  medita 
tion.  Starting  to  her  feet,  her  eyes  met  a  sight  which  froze  her 
blood  with  terror. 

"The  only  outlet  to  the  forest  was  the  narrow  path,  barely 
wide  enough  for  a  single  person,  hemmed  in  by  trees  and 
rocks,  which  she  had  just  traversed.  Down  this  path,  in 
Indian  file,  came  a  monstrous  grizzly,  closely  followed  by  a 
California  lion,  a  wild  cat,  and  a  buffalo,  the  rear  being 
brought  up  by  a  wild  Spanish  bull.  The  mouths  of  the  three 
first  animals  were  distended  with  frightful  significance,  the 
horns  of  the  last  were  lowered  as  ominously.  As  Genevra  was 
preparing  to  faint,  she  heard  a  low  voice  behind  her. 

"  'Eternally  dog-gone  my  skin  if  this  ain't  the  puttiest 
chance  yet!' 

"At  the  same  moment,  a  long,  shining  barrel  dropped 
lightly  from  behind  her,  and  rested  over  her  shoulder. 

"Genevra  shuddered. 

"  *  Dern  ye — don't  move ! ' 

"Genevra  became  motionless. 

"The  crack  of  a  rifle  rang  through  the  woods.  Three 
frightful  yells  were  heard,  and  two  sullen  roars.  Five  animals 
bounded  into  the  air  and  five  lifeless  bodies  lay  upon  the 
plain.  The  well-aimed  bullet  had  done  its  work.  Entering 
the  open  throat  of  the  grizzly  it  had  traversed  his  body  only  to 
enter  the  throat  of  the  California  lion,  and  in  the  like  manner 
the  catamount,  until  it  passed  through  into  the  respective 
foreheads  of  the  bull  and  the  buffalo,  and  finally  fell  flattened 
from  the  rocky  hillside. 

"Genevra  turned  quickly.    'My  preserver!'  she  shrieked, 


366  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

and  fell  into  the  arms  of  Natty  Bumpo,  the  celebrated  Pike 
Ranger  of  Donner  Lake." 

Bret  Harte's  humor  is  remembered  especially  in  connection 
with  two  of  his  characters — Colonel  Culpepper  Starbottle  and 
Yuba  Bill.  The  Colonel's  name  suggests  the  Dickens  in 
fluence,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  detect  the  vein  of  Dickens- 
like  exaggeration  in  the  character.  Colonel  Starbottle  is 

— --dsLgfe-^g^-.-^-^-— 

noteofor  his  eloquence,  of  the  florid  kind,  his  readiness  to 
fight  duels,  and  his  susceptibility  to  the  fair  sex — traits  that 
lend  themselves  rather  easily  to  the  purposes  of  exaggerated 
humor.  <But  Harte  portrays  the  not  too  admirable  Colonel 
with  such  completeness  that  he  is  felt  to  be  a  type,  not  a  carica 
ture.  He  is  unusual  among  Bret  Harte's  other  creations  for 
the  preponderance  of  the  realism  of  his  appearance  over  the 
optimism;  for  once,  the  author  lets  us  suspect  or  see  plainly 
more  weakness  in  human  nature  than  even  the  humor  of  the 
story  can  quite  compensate  for.  And  Colonel  Starbottle  was 
apparently  among  Bret  Harte's  few  imagined  characters. 
From  Virginia  he  once  wrote  to  his  wife  a  letter  that  indicates 
the  sort  of  American  Colonel  Newcome  he  intended  Colonel 
Starbottle  to  be: 

"  Imagine  my  sitting  down  to  dinner  with  a  gentleman  in  the 
dress  of  the  early  century — ruffles,  even  bag-wig  complete — 
a  gentleman  who  has  visited  these  springs  for  the  last  forty 
years!  Who  remembers  'Madison,  Sir,'  and  'Mousie,  Sir/ 
and  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  the  poems  of  Matthew  Prior! 
I  have  seen  people  that  I  believed  never  existed  off  the  stage — 
gouty  old  uncles  in  white  flannel;  stiff  old  dowagers  who  per 
sonify  the  centennial.  And  all  this  undiscovered  country 
within  four  hundred  miles  of  New  York.  I  never  had  such 
a  chance  in  my  life,  and  I  look  back  upon  poor  Colonel  Star- 
bottle  as  an  utter  failure.  If  I  could  dress  Robson  and  get 
him  to  speak  as  I  heard  the  real  Virginia  Colonel  Starbottle 
speak  yesterday,  I  could  make  him  famous." 


BRET  HARTE  367 

Perhaps  it  should  be  added  that  the  modern  Virginian  is 
tempted  to  think  this  portrait  as  fanciful  and  untrue  to  facts 
as  was  Colonel  Starbottle  himself. 

Yuba  Bill,  the  stage-driver,  is  a  finer  creation,  more  orig 
inal  and  more  human.  He,  too,  seems  to  owe  something  to 
Dickens,  and  the  resemblance  is  not  simply  that  like  Tony 
Weller  he  drove  a  coach.  He  indulges  habitually  in  the  kind 
of  sarcasm  that  marks  the  speech  of  the  Wellers,  father  and 
son.  When  the  Hon.  Judge  Beeswinger,  Member  of  As 
sembly,  asked  Yuba  Bill  if  there  were  any  political  news,  the 
reply  was  in  the  Weller  manner, — "  'Not  much,'  said  Bill, 
with  deliberate  gravity.  '  The  President  o'  the  United  States 
hazn't  bin  hisself  sens  you  refoosed  that  seat  in  the  Cabinet. 
The  ginral  feelin'  in  perlitical  circles  is  one  o'  regret!"  But 
Yuba  Bill  is  otherwise  far  different  from  any  type  that  Dickens 
knew.  He  gains  from  that  romantic  contrast  of  scene  and  in 
cident,  of  which  Bret  Harte  was  master.  Driving  the  crazy 
coach  through  all  manner  of  dangers,  over  all  sorts  of  coun 
try,  with  the  greatest  variety  of  passenger,  in  the  happiest  at 
mosphere  of  adventure,  Yuba  Bill  is  a  quiet  man,  never  lo 
quacious,  as  were  the  Wellers;  depending  upon  the  keen  an 
alyzing  power  of  his  sarcasm  for  his  command  of  men;  and 
yet  essentially  chivalrous  and  very  brave.  The  silence  in  his 
nature,  and  the  heroic  services  to  the  community  which  make 
up  the  usual  course  of  his  duties,  invest  him  with  a  certain 
grandeur  that  suggests  Leatherstocking.  The  two  men  would 
have  understood  each  other,  and  one  wishes  they  might  have 
met. 

IX 

Bret  Harte  is  to  be  considered  a  novelist  only  by  courtesy; 
he  was  a  writer  of  short  stories.  His  one  long  novel,  Gabriel 
Conroy,  and  his  shorter  ones,  such  as  Maruja,  are  not  among 
his  successes.  The  difficulty  seems  to  have  been  that  the 


368  LEADING  AMERICAN  NOVELISTS 

length  of  a  novel  drew  Bret  Harte  away  from  that  contrast  of 
scene  and  incident  upon  which  his  genius  worked.  *  In  the 
novels  he  has  his  hands  full  managing  the  plot,  and  both  char 
acters  and  scene  escape  from  his  control.  In  Gabriel  Conroy 
the  outward  incidents,  such  as  the  rescue  of  Madame  De- 
varges  and  the  discovery  of  silver  in  the  mine,  determined  the 
story;  the  persons  in  the  plot  are  of  slight  interest. 

It  is  somewhat  odd  that  Bret  Harte  should  not  have  written 
a  great  novel  of  character,  for  he  had  the  ability  to  revive  his 
characters,  John  Hamlin,  Oakhurst,  Colonel  Starbottle,  in 
many  different  tales;  one  wonders  why  he  could  not  have 
carried  them  with  equal  effect  through  numerous  episodes. 
The  solution  probably  is  that  he  wrote  well  only  about  this 
one  section  of  life — the  section  he  best  knew;  and  he  knew  it 
only  in  fragments.  To  write  of  more  than  one  detached  frag 
ment  meant  to  compose,  and  to  compose  meant  a  literary 
effort,  apart  from  life,  unsuited  to  Harte's  genius.  The  pan 
orama  of  incidents  in  which  he  set  his  gallery  of  portraits, 
gives  him  the  effect  of  a  novelist;  he  has  in  the  mass  of 
his  Western  stories  a  volume  and  unity  of  effect  such  as 
neither  Poe  nor  Hawthorne  attained  in  short  stories.  If 
his  genius  had  taken  such  a  direction,  the  material  he  had 
in  hand  deserved  the  larger  form,  not  of  the  novel,  but 
the  epic. 

What  service  he  performed  for  the  world  as  well  as  for  his 
country's  literature,  is  admirably  stated  in  Mr.  Chesterton's 
words : ' '  He  discovered  the  intense  sensibility  of  the  primitive 
man.  To  him  we  owe  the  realization  of  the  fact  that  while 
modern  barbarians  of  genius  like  Mr.  Henley,  and  in  his 
weaker  moments  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling,  delight  in  describing 
the  coarseness  and  crude  cynicism  and  fierce  humor  of  the 
unlettered  classes,  the  unlettered  classes  are  in  reality  highly 
sentimental  and  religious,  and  not  in  the  least  like  the  crea 
tions  of  Mr.  Henley  and  Mr.  Kipling.  Bret  Harte  tells  the 


BRET  HARTE  369 

truth  about  the  wildest,  the  grossest,  the  most  rapacious  of  all 
the  districts  of  the  earth — the  truth  that,  while  it  is  very  rare 
indeed  in  the  world  to  find  a  thoroughly  good  man,  it  is  rarer 
still,  rare  to  the  point  of  monstrosity,  to  find  a  man  who  does 
not  either  desire  to  be  one,  or  imagine  that  he  is  one  already." 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abbott,  The,  62 

Addison,  Joseph,  4 

Address  to  the  Congress  of  the  United 

States,  45 
Address  to    the    Government    of   the 

United  States,  45 
Adventures  of  Captain  Simon  Suggs, 

326 

Afloat  and  Ashore,  117 
Agnes  of  Sorrento,  320 
Alastor,  120 

Albany  Journal,  The,  102 
Alcuin,  14,  25,  43,  45 
American  Magazine,  The,  196 
American  Monthly  Magazine,  The, 

196,  197 

American  Register,  The,  46 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  The,  237 
Andre,  Major,  61 
Arabian  Nights,  The,  277 
Arcadia,  The,  182,  183 
Argonauts  of  '49,  The,  350 
Artemus  Ward,  350 
Arthur  Mervyn,  4,  15,  22,  27-31,  42 
Atalanta  in  Calydon,  338 
Atalantis,  a  Story  of  the  Sea,  140 
Atlantic  Monthly,  The,  271,  309,  318, 

322,  337 

Aunt  Phillis'  Cabin,  296 
Autumn  Musings,  327 

Bacon,  Delia,  266 
Bailie  Nichol  Jarvie,  127 
Baldwin,  Joseph  Grover,  326 
Barry  Cornwall,  98 
Beatrix  Esmond,  88 
Beauchampe,  158 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  276 
Beecher,  Lyman,  276,  286 
Beggar  Girl,  The,  39 
Benjamin,  Park,  195 
Biographical  Stories  for  Children,  225 
Birthmark,  The,  232,   233,  235,   244 
Black  Cat,  The,  211,  213 
Bleak  House,  354 

Blithedale  Romance,   The,   262-265, 
270 


Bohemian  Days  in  San  Francisco, 

33° 

Book  of  My  Lady,  The,  141 

Border  Beagles,  158 

Borderers,  The,  see  The  Wept  of 
Wish-ton-Wish 

Boston  Miscellany,  The,  225 

Bracebridge  Hall,  210 

Bravo,  The,  94-96,  99,  157 

Bridge,  Horatio,  188,  197,  205,  228 

British  Treaty,  The,  45 

Brooks,  Noah,  334 

Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  born  in 
Philadelphia,  5;  his  education, 
6—8;  first  appearance  in  print,  9; 
removes  to  New  York,  n;  first 
novel,  14;  marriage,  40;  returns  to 
Philadelphia,  40;  political  writ 
ings,  45;  illness  and  death,  47 

Brownell,  W.  C.,  124 

Burns,  Robert,  18 

Burr,  Aaron,  311 

Byron,  Lord,  19,  23,  61,  71 

Cain,  19 

Caleb  Williams,  23,  24-27,  187 

Calif ornian,  The,  331 

Carl  Werner,  157 

Cask  of  Amontillado,  The,  211,  213 

Cassique  of  Kiawah,  The,  170 

Castle  of  Otranto,  The,  15 

Chainbearer,  The,  117 

Charlemont,  159 

Charleston  Courier,  The,  135 

Chenango  Telegraph,  The,  101,  102 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  368 

Childe  Harold,  120 

Chingachgook,  79 

Citizen  of  the  World,  The,  40 

City  Gazette,  The,  137 

Clara  Howard,  41 

Clemens,  S.,  see  Mark  Twain 

Clinton,  DeWitt,  83 

Columbus,  Christopher,  115 

Commercial  Advertiser,  The,  102,  107 

Condensed  Novels,  331,  364 

Confession,  159 

373 


374 


INDEX 


Cooper,  James  Fenimore:  born,  Bur 
lington,  52;  boyhood  at  Coopers- 
town,  52-54;  school  and  college, 
55;  naval  training,  55;  marriage, 
56;  removes  to  New  York,  82; 
foreign  travel,  83;  consul  at  Lyons, 
84;  returns  to  the  United  States, 
97;Three  Mile  Point  episode,  100- 
103;  the  naval  history,  106;  illness 
and  death,  1 18 

Cora  Munro,  79 

Cortes,  Cain,  and  Other  Poems,  137 

Cosmopolitan,  The,  141 

Courier  and  Enquirer,  The,  102 

Crater,  The,  118 

Cuchullain,  177 

Curtis,  G.  W.,  221,  342 

Daily  South  Carolinian,  The,  173 

Daisy  Miller,  43 

Damsel  of  Darien,  The,  157 

Dana,  C.,  221 

David  Swan,  205 

Deerslayer,  The,  43,   67,   108,    109, 

110-115,  124 
Defoe,  D.,  4,  92,  205 
Derby,  Captain  George  Horatio,  326 
Devil  in  Manuscript,  The,  193 
Dickens,  Charles,  64,  301,  327,  355 
Dickens  in  Camp,  352 
Dr.    Heidegger's   Experiment,    207, 

208 

Dolliver  Romance,  The,  271 
Dombey  and  Son,  327 
Don  Quixote,  172 
Dred,  295,  302-308 
Dudley,  Constantia,  43 
Dunlap,  William,  5,  n 

Early  Lays,  136 

Edgar  Huntly,  22,  32-36,  38,  41 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  64 

Edward  Randolph's  Portrait,  201 

Egotism;  Or  The  Bosom  Serpent,  232 

Elegy,  Gray's,  301 

Eliot,  George,  see  George  Eliot 

Elsie  Venner,  321 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  48,  179,  181 

Endicott  and  the  Red  Cross,  201,  202, 

243 

Ethan  Brand,  an,  238,  261 
Eutaw,  167,  168 
Eva,  290,  294,  295,  305 
Evangeline,  234 
Evening  Signal,  Thet  102 


Faerie  Queene,  The,  182,  186,  269 
Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  The,  16, 

211 

Famous  Old  People,  219 
Fanshawe,  191-193,  195 
Feathertop,  232,  233 
Fielding,  H.,  327 
Fields,  J.  T.,  242,  253,  343 
Fire  Worship,  232 
Flush  Times  of  Alabama  and  Mis 
sissippi,  326 

Found  at  Blazing  Star,  350 
Forayers,  The,  167,  168 
Forrest,  Edwin,  140 
Forster,  John,  354 
Franklin,  B.,  4 
Freemasonry,  23 
Freiligrath,  F.,  341 
Fremont,  Mrs.,  331 
Fuller,  Margaret,  221,  227 

Gabriel  Conroy,  342,  367,  368 
Gamut,  David,  79 
Gentle  Boy,  The,  193 
George  Eliot,  347 
Georgia  Scenes,  326 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  301 
Godwin,  William,  3,  4,  13,  23,  24 
Golden  Era,  The,  330,  331 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  40,  327 
Goodrich,  S.  G.,  193,  196 
Grandfather's  Chair,  219 
Gray  Champion,  The,  201,  235 
Great  Stone  Face,  The,  238,  261 
Greeley,  Horace,  103 
Guy  Rivers,  141-142,  *75 

Hallam,  Henry,  301 

Hardy,  Thomas,  326 

Hard  Heart,  89 

Harte,  Bret,  born  at  Albany,  327; 
goes  to  California,  328;  marriage, 
330;  returns  to  the  East,  342;  con 
sul  at  Crefeld,  345;  at  Glasgow, 
350;  illness  and  death,  351 

Harvey  Birch,  59-62,  73 

Hathorne,  William,  182 

Hawkeye,  see  Leatherstocking 

Hawthorne,  Daniel,  183 

Hawthorne,  John,  183 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  born,  in 
Salem,  184;  his  mother's  charac 
ter,  185;  boyhood,  186,  187;  col 
lege,  188;  life  in  Salem  190;  en 
gaged  to  Sophia  Peabody,  215; 


INDEX 


375 


Boston  Custom-house,  216;  Brook 
Farm,    220-225;    marriage,    225; 
Salem    Custom-house,    229;    the 
gift  from  his  friends,  240;  Consul 
at  Liverpool,  265;  remarks  on  art, 
267;  return  to  Concord,  271;  ill 
ness  and  death,  272 
Hay,  John,  343,  347 
Hayne,  Paul,  169 
Headsman,  The,  94,  96,  97,  157 
Heathen  Chinee,  The,  338,  364 
Heidenmauer,  The,  85,  94,  96 
Henley,  W.  E.,  368 
Henry  Esmond,  51,  153 
Hester  Prynne,  43,  245-250 
High-Water  Mark,  356,  358 
History  of  the    Byron    Controversy, 

The,  322 
History  of  the  United  States  Navy, 

1 06 

Holland,  George,  140 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  253 
Home  As  Found,  103,  105 
Homeward  Bound,  103,  104 
Hooper,  Johnson  Jones,  326 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  The,  16, 

17,  183,  184,  253-259 
Ho  wells,  W.  D.,  49 
Howe's  Masquerade,  201,  204,  212 
Hurry  Harry,  in 

Ichabod  Crane,  79 

Illuminati,  The,  24 

Indian,  American,  32,  34,  78 

Inquiry  Concerning  Political  Justice, 

24 

In  the  Carquinez  Woods,  359 
Irving,  Washington,  4,  60,  85,  92, 

209-211 
Ivanhoe,  120,  287 

Jack  Tier,  118 

Jane  Talbot,  46 

Johnson,  Dr.,  4,  169 

Joscelyn,  173 

Journal  of  An  African  Cruiser,  The, 

205,  227 

Journal  of  the  Plague  Year,  29 
Judith  Hutter,  43,  in 
Jumping  Frog  of  Calaveras,  331 

Katharine  Walton,  149,  153-156,  167 
Keats,  John,  47 
Kemble,  Fanny,  140,  253,  339 
KenUworth)  62 


Kent,  Chancellor,  83 
King,  Thomas  Starr,  331 
Kingsley,  Charles,  301,  308 
Kinsmen,  The,  159 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  368 

Lady  Eleanor's  Mantle,  244 

Lafayette,  86 

Last  Days  of  the  Goth,  157 

Last  of  the  Mohicans,   The,   76—82, 

1 08,  no,  112,  126,  144 
Leatherstocking,  38,  51,  61,  73,  77, 

88,  90 
Leatherstocking  Tales,  The,  51,  60, 

65,  77,  88,  112,  119 
Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  The,  209 
Legends  of  the  Thirteen  Republics,  76 
Letter  to  General  Lafayette,  86 
Letter  to  His  Countrymen,  99 
Liberty  Tree,  The,  219 
Ligeia,  211 
Lionel  Lincoln,  76 
Literary    Magazine    and    American 

Register,  The,  43,  44,  46 
Longfellow,  H.  W.,  193,  198,  206 
Longstreet,  Augustus  Baldwin,  326 
Long  Tom,  see  Tom  Coffin 
Lost  Galleon,  The,  332 
Lost  Pleiad,  The,  137 
Lounsbury,  T.  R.,  62,  124 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  85,  259,  312 
Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,   The,  325, 

334-338.  35i,  354,  357,  358,  359 
Lyrical  and  Other  Poems,  136 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  301 

McCarthy,  Justin,  348 

Magnalia,  277 

Main  Street,  238 

Major  Jones'  Courtship,  326 

Man    That   Corrupted  Hadleyburg, 

The,  364 
Marble  Faun,  The,  17,  184,  213,  263, 

265,  268-271 

Mark  Twain,  77,  331,  363,  364 
Maroon,  The,  176 
Martin  Faber,  140,  141 
Maruja,  367 

Masque  of  the  Red  Death,  The,  211 
Mayflower,  The,  279,  287 
Maypole  of  Merry  Mount,  The,  202 
Mellichampe,  149,  154,  ^57,  J59 
Melville,  Herman,  253 
Memoirs  of  Carwin,  18,  24,  43 
Memoirs  of  Stephen  Calvert,  32 


376 


INDEX 


Mercedes  of  Castile,  115 

Miles  Walling  ford,  117 

Miller,  Joaquin,  333,  338,  345,  347, 

348 

Milnes,  Monckton,  349 
Milton,  John,  186 
Minister's  Black  Veil,  The,  211 
Minister's  Wooing,   The,   287,  309- 

514 

Miserere,  Mozart's,  315 

Mliss,  330,  337,  355 

Manikins,  The,  100 

Montcalm,  77 

Monthly    Magazine    and    American 

Review,  The,  32,  44 
Mosses  from  An  Old  Manse,  226,  227, 

231-238,  250,  261 
Mr.  Thompson's  Prodigal,  364 
My  First  Book,  332 
Mysteries  of  Udolpho,   The,  15,   126 
My  Wife  and  I,  321 

National  Era,  The,  288 

Natty  Bumpo,  61,  366 

New  Adam  and  Eve,  The,  232 

Newcome,  Colonel,  91 

New  England  Magazine,  The,  193 

New  York  Independent,  The,  315 

Norna,  43,  169 

North  American  Review,  The,  198 

Notes  of  Travel,  266 

Notions  of  the  Americans,  85 

Oak  Openings,  The,  118 

Old  Town  Fireside  Stories,  320 

Old  Town  Folks,  320,  321,  323 

Oneida  Whig,  The,  102 

Orion,  160 

Ormond,  22,  24,  27,  41 

Our  Old  Home,  266,  271 

Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,  The,  338,  354, 

359 
Overland  Monthly,  The,  334,  341 

Parkman,  Francis,  no,  124 
Partisan,  The,  149,  153,  159,  176 
Pathfinder,  The,  56,  108-110 
Paul  Jones,  70,  71,  73 
Peabody,  Elizabeth,  214 
Pearl  ofOrr's  Island,  The,  315-317 
Pelayo,  157 
Peter  Parley,  196 
Philanthropist,  The,  286 
Phillips,  Wendell,  342 
Phcenixiana,  326 


"Phoenix,  John,"  326 
Pickwick  Papers,  354 
Pierce,  Franklin,  272 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  The,  92,  133, 

168,  186 
Pilot,  The,  68-74,  75,  116,  119,  124, 

126 

Pinckney,  Charles  Cotesworth,  135 
Pioneers,  The,  66,  68,  76,  77,  79,  83, 

87,  98,  103,  108,  in,  114,  116,  117, 

144 

Pirate,  The,  43,  68,  69,  114 
Poe,  E.  A.,  1 6,  38,  179,  211-213,  349 
Poganuc  People,  316,  321,  323 
Prairie,  The,  67,  87-91 
Precaution,  57,  59 
Provincial  Tales,  193 
Punch,  337,  363 
Puritans  of  America,  see  The  Wept 

of  Wish-ton-Wish 

Radcliffe,  Mrs.  Anne,  15 
Rappaccini's    Daughter,    211,    232, 

235,  236 
Rashleigh,  125 

Recollections  of  a  Gifted  Woman,  266 
Red  Rover,  The,  71,  74-76,  91,  93, 

116,  118 

Redskins,  The,  117 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  341 
Richard  Hurdis,  158 
Rill  from  the  Town  Pump,  A,  205 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  209 
Robin  Hood,  61,  120 
Rob  Roy,  60,  61,  120,  125,  127 
Robson,  Stuart,  342 
Roger  Chillingworth,  37 
Roger  Malvin's  Burial,  193,  232,  235, 

236 
Russell's  Magazine,  169 

Sabbath,  The,  280 
Salomy  Jane's  Kiss,  362 
Satanstoe,  117 

Scarlet  Letter,  The,  4,  200,  201,  213, 
216,  229,  230,  231,  239-253,  257, 

345 
Scott,  Walter,  37,  48,  51,  52,  54,  63, 

68,  69,  81,  127,  286 
Scout,  The,  159 
Sea  Lions,  The,  118 
Seven  Tales  of  My  Native  Land,  195 
Shakspere,  William,  181,  186 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  4,  13,  14,  18, 

19,  23,  47 


INDEX 


377 


Sights  from  a  Steeple,  206 

Simms,  William  Gilmore,  born  in 
Charleston,  132;  his  parents,  131, 
brought  up  by  his  grandmother, 
132;  enters  law  office,  133;  engaged 
to  be  married,  134;  the  Charleston 
mob,  138;  becomes  bankrupt,  138; 
goes  North,  139;  second  marriage, 
154;  attitude  towards  the  war,  159- 
160,  171;  Woodlands  burned,  172; 
illness  and  death,  175 

Simms'  Magazine,  160 

Sketch  Book,  The,  60,  65 

Sketches  of  a  History  of  Car  sol,  14 

Sketches  of  a  History  of  the  Carrils 
and  Ormes,  14 

Sky  Walk,  14 

Smollett,  Tobias,  327 

Snow  Image,  The,  189,  197,  238,  261 

Southern  Press,  The,  296 

Southern  Quarterly  Review,  160 

Southern  and  Western  Monthly,  160 

Southron,  The,  160 

South  Sea  Idyls,  331 

Southward  Ho!  166 

Spectator,  The,  187,  209 

Spenser,  Edmund,  186 

Spy,  The,  56,  58-66,  67,  68,  69,  76, 
82,  91,  119,  124,  126,  149,  150 

Starbottle,  Colonel,  366,  368 

Stoddard,  Charles  Warren,  331,  334, 
338 

Stowe,  Calvin  E.,  281 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  born  at 
Litchfield,  276;  girlhood,  277-279; 
Lane  Seminary,  279;  marriage, 
281;  southern  travel,  284;  Bow- 
doin,  287;  Andover,  298;  travel 
abroad,  299;  second  trip  abroad, 
308;  Hartford,  319;  the  Byron 
controversy,  321;  illness  and  death, 
322 

Sumner,  Charles,  168 

Sun,  The  New  York,  221 

Sunday  at  Home,  206 

Sunday  Atlas,  The,  327 

Sunny  Memories,  302 

Supplement  to  the  Plays  of  William 
Shakspere,  162 

Sword  and  Distaff,  The,  162 

Tablet,  The,  136,  138 
Tales  of  the  Argonauts,  329 
Talleyrand,  53 
Tanglewood  Tales,  261 


Tempest,  The,  257 

Tennessee's  Partner,  338,  359 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  51,  88,  91,  129 

Thankful  Blossom,  342 

Thompson,  W.  T.,  326 

Thoreau,  H.  D.,  227 

Ticknor,  W.  D.,  272 

Token  The,  193,  195 

Toll-Gatherer's  Day,  The,  205 

Tom  Coffin,  51,  60,  75 

Tribune,  The  New  York,  102 

Tri-Color,  The,  137 

True  Story  of  Lady  Byron's  Life, 

The,  322 

Trumpet  Major,  The,  326 
Twice   Told   Tales,    189,    190,    197, 

200-213,  225,  232,  242,  243,  258, 

261 

Two  Admirals,  The,  115 
Two  Men  of  Sandy  Bar,  342,  351 

Uncas,  35,  51,  79 

Uncle  Lot,  279,  280 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  48,  51,  180,  276, 

283,  284,4^2=2^)297,  300,  303, 

304,  317,  318 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  Key  to,  288,  297 
Universal  History   on   the   Basis   of 

Geography,  196 
Upside  Down;    or,    Philosophy    in 

Petticoats,  118 

Valley  of  Wish-ton-Wish,  The,  see 

The  Wept  of  Wish-ton-Wish 
Vasconselos,  166 
Vernon,  Diana,  37,  43 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  The,  133 
Views  and  Reviews,  162 
Virginians,  The,  153 
Virtuoso's  Collection,  A,  225,  233 

Wake  field,  207,  208 
Walpole,  Horace,  15 
Ward,  Artemus,  363 
Washington,  George,  62 
Water  Witch,  The,  93,  116 
Watts-Dunton,  Theodore,  352 
Waverley,  120 

Ways  of  the  Hour,  The,  118 
We  and  Our  Neighbors,  321 
Webb,  Charles  Henry,  331 
Webster,  Daniel,  287 
Wedding  Knell,  The,  211 
Weed,  Thurlow,  103,  no 
Weekly  Magazine,  The,  27 


378 


INDEX 


Wept  of  Wish-ton-Wish,  The,  91 
Western  Monthly,  The,  279 
Wieland,  14-22,  42,  49 
William  Wilson,  211,  212 
Willis,  N.  P.,  85 
Wing  and  Wing,  115,  116 
Wonder  Book,  A,  260,  261 
Woodcraft,  163-166,  176 


Wordsworth,  William,  54,  81 
Wyandotte,  116 

Yale  College,  55 
Yemassee,  The,  142-149,  175 
Young  Goodman  Brown,  237 
Young  Provincial,  The,  193 
Yuba  Bill,  363,  366,  367 


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